
m 


: i;,!:!!;;;;;!!!!!;.!!!;!!!]}™!!. 


1. 1 



; J fa Y\i 



mmm nui 



.« Jit AJUUDikj 



CLEVELAND, OHIO. 



<y~A 







1833. FEBRUARY 16. 1883. 



HISTORY 



OF THE 



FIRSTBAPTISTCHURCH 



OF CLEVELAND, OHIO; 



AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE CELEBRATION OF ITS 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL, 



FEBRUARY 16TH-20TH, 1883, 



CLEVELAND, O. : 

J. B. SAVAGE, PRINTER, FRANKFORT ST. 
1883. 



c</ 5 






TO 

REBECCA E. ROUSE, 

A MOTHER BELOVED IN OUR FAMILY IN CHRIST; AND 

HARRIET P. HICKOX, 

THE ONLY RESIDENT CONSTITUENT MEMBERS; 
AND TO 

THOMAS GOODMAN, of Chicago, and 
HARRIET MALVIN, of Washington; 

THE ONLY OTHER SURVIVORS OF THE CONSTITUENT MEMBERS, 

FEBRUARY 16th, 1833 ; 

THIS ACCOUNT OF THE MEMORIAL SERVICES 

HELD IN OUR HOUSE OF WORSHIP, ON NORTHWEST CORNER OF EUCLID AVENUE 

AND ERIE STREET, ON THE COMPLETION OF A 

HALF CENTURY OF OUR CHURCH LIFE, 

IS INSCRIBED, 

WITH 
LOVE FOR THE LIVING, 

CHERISHED MEMORIES OF THE DEPARTED, and 

GRATITUDE TO GOD : 

BY THE 

FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN CLEVELAND, 

FEBRUARY 16th, A. D., 1883. 



LIST OF THE CONSTITUENT MEMBERS 

OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN CLEVELAND, OHIO, AT THE TIME IT WAS 
CONSTITUTED. FEBRUARY 16th, 1833. 



MOSES WHITE, 
BENJAMIN ROUSE, 
REBECCA E. ROUSE, 
THOMAS WHELPLEY, 
JEDUTHAN ADAMS, 
JOHN SEAMAN, 
HORATIO RANNEY, 
LEONARD STOCKWELL, 
SOPHIA STOCKWELL, 
THOMAS GOODMAN, 
JOHN MALVIN, 
HARRIET MALVIN, 
MARY BELDEN, 
HARRIET P. HICKOX, 
LETHA GRIFFITH, 
ELIZABETH TAYLOR, 
S. M. CUTLER. 



PROCEEDINGS 



The First Baptist Church of Cleveland was organized Feb- 
ruary 16, 1833. As the fiftieth anniversary of this event drew 
near, it was resolved by the church to hold appropriate histor- 
ical and memorial services. Accordingly, a Historical Commit- 
tee was appointed, consisting of Benj. F. Eouse, Loren Prentiss, 
and James M. Hoyt. The following persons were also chosen 
as a Committee on Program : C. B. Bernard, W. E. Clarke, J. 
W. Taylor, C. A. Smith, and C. P. Leland. 

On Friday evening, February 9th, the Committee on Pro- 
gram reported, recommending that a praise meeting be held on 
Friday evening, the 16th mst., memorial and historical services 
on Sunday, the 18th, and social and banquet on Monday even- 
ing, the 19th. 

In accordance with this recommendation, the church met in 
the lecture room on the evening of February 16th, at half-past 
seven o'clock. The room was fitly and beautifully decorated 
with United States flags draping the walls, and a large oil paint- 
ing of Rev. S. W. Adams, D. D., was hung in the rear of the 
desk, and in full view of the congregation. The services opened 
with singing and prayer. . The 84th and 122d Psalms were read 
responsively. A brief address was made by the pastor, Philip 
S. Moxom, setting forth the significance of the occasion, and 
the reason for making the service one of jubilant praise to God. 
A large number of people were present, and many participated 
in the exercises. James M. Hoyt, Mrs. N. C. Hills, Mrs. Emma 
Saunders, Dea. Wm. T. Smith, Mrs. Wm. T. Smith, Dea. E. 
P. Myers, Dea. J. W. Taylor, C. B. Bernard and Mrs. C. E. 
Wheeler spoke of their relations to the church, and of benefits 



8 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

derived from it, and gave many touching reminiscences of past 
events and of members now dead. Kev. S. B. Page, D. D., and 
Mrs. Page, both at one time members of the church, made 
deeply interesting remarks. A letter from Mr. Oscar Townsend 
was read, expressing regret over inability to be present, and 
warmest sympathy with the occasion. A beautiful poem, en- 
titled "God's Plans," written by Mrs. M. Ii. Stanton, formerly 
of this church, now of Philadelphia, was presented by R. P. 
Myers. 

A noticeable feature of the service was the singing. All the 
hymns and tunes were of the old and enduring psalmody of the 
church, and the entire congregation joined in the singing with 
hearty devotion. In the course of the service the following 
hymn, a favorite of past years, and often heard from the melo- 
dious lips of Deacon Benjamin Rouse, was sung: 

GOOD OLD WAY. 

Lift up your hearts, Immamiel's friends, 
And taste the pleasure Jesus sends. 
Let nothing cause you to delay, 
But hasten on the good old way. 

Oh, good old way ! how good it is, 
To dwell where loving Jesus is. 
A life of love, a heaven below : 
I have no doubt you'll find it so. 

Our conflicts here, though great they be, 
Shall not prevent our victory, 
If we but watch, and strive and pray, 
Like soldiers, in the good old way . 

Oh, good old way ! how good it is, &e. 

Oh, good old way, how sweet thou art ! 
May none of us from thee depart, 
But may our actions always say, 
We're marching in the good old way. 

Oh, good old way ! how good it is, &c. 

Then far beyond this mortal shore, 
We'll meet with those who've gone before, 



PROCEEDINGS. 9 

And shout to think we've gained the day, 
By marching in the good old way. 

Oh, good old way ! how good it is, &c . 

The meeting closed at half-past nine o'clock with the hymn, 
" Blest be the tie that binds " and the benediction. 

On Sunday morning a large congregation assembled in the 
audience room at a quarter before eleven o'clock. The pulpit 
and choir were decorated with ground pine and smilax. On 
either side of the pulpit were large figures of evergreen — 
on one side "1833," and on the other "1883." Between the 
figures, and just in front of the. pulpit, were two monograms 
of two letters each, R. T. and P. M. These letters are the 
initials of the first pastor of the church, Richmond Taggart, 
and of the present pastor, Philip Moxom, and were wrought of 
red and white immortelles. On a table before the pulpit was a 
large bed of rich and fragrant flowers, swelling over a border of 
ferns, sea-moss and green vines. There were callas, carnations, 
rare varieties of roses, primroses, pansies, and others. At the 
east side of the platform was a green and graceful fan palm, ten 
feet high. The decorations were prepared by a committee under 
the direction of Mrs. W. H. Harris. In a glass case on the 
table was a Bible nearly two hundred and fifty years old, for- 
merly the property of Rev. John Clarke, an associate of Roger 
Williams at Newport, R. I., and now owned by a descendant, 
Mr. W. E. Clarke, of this city. 

The order of services was as follows : 

t. Anthem, "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne," - By the Choir. 

2 . Invocation and Lord's Prayer. 

3. Doxology. - - - - - - 

4. Responsive Reading : Selections from the 105th, 

118th and 121st Psalms, .... 

5. Hymn, "Lord, in the Morning Thou shalt Hear." 

6. Offertory. - - - - 

7. Early History of the Church, By Benj. F. Rouse. 

8. Sentence, "The Lord is in His Holy Temple," By the Choir. 

9 . History of the Church from Nov. 1846 to the 

Present Time, - - - - - By Loren Prentiss 
10. Hymn, " I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord." 



10 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 

11. Statistics of Fifty Years, - - - By C. P. Leland. 

12. Anthem, " Strike the Cymbals," - • - By the Choir. 

13. Benediction. - 

At 2:15 P. M. anniversary exercises for the Sunday school 
were held before a large audience in the lower room. There 
was singing by the school and instrumental music by the or- 
chestra, including a beautiful composition by Mr. Thorndyke, 
the leader of the orchestra. Two former superintendents of 
the Sunday school, Mr. Wm. T. Smith and Mr. E. P. Myers, 
and Miss Mary Dean, of Painesville, a former superintendent of 
the infant department, made interesting addresses, detailing 
the work and growth of the Sunday school, and what had been 
done in mission schools in the city. They were followed by the 
pastor, who spoke briefly of the "veterans" that remain, and 
the inspiration of their example to the young. 

At half-past seven in the evening an audience assembled com- 
pletely filling the house, including representatives of all the 
Baptist and many other churches in the city. The order of ex- 
ercises was as follows : 

1. Anthem, " Eternal Source of Every Joy," - . - By the Choir. 

2. Invocation, - - By Rev. G. L. Stevens. 

3. Gloria Patri, - - -■-'.'- - - - - By the Choir. 

4. Responsive Reading, selections from the 122d, 

136th and 145th Psalms. 

5. Hymn, ' ' Come We who Love the Lord. " - - 

6. "Our Honored Deacons," - By James M. Hoy t. 

7. Hymn, " Come let us join our Cheerful Songs." 

8. "The Women of the Church," - - By Mrs, S. W. Adams. 

9. Address, By Rev. G. T. Bowling, Pastor Euclid Ave. Baptist Church. 

10. Address, By Rev. G. O.King, Pastor Willson Ave . Baptist Church. 

11. Chant, "The Lord is my Shepherd," - - By tlie Choir. 

12. Benediction. 

All of these services were of the deepest interest to every 
one present. The historical and memorial papers were prepared 
and presented with an admirable appreciation both of subjects 
and occasion. Although each service continued for fully two 
hours, no flagging of attention was perceptible in the audi- 
ence. 



PROCEEDINGS. \\ 

The celebration closed on Monday evening with a social 
and banquet, which were thus described in the Cleveland Leader, 
of February 20th: 

"The services incident to the Semi-centennial Anniversary 
of the founding of the First Baptist Church, were brought to a 
close last evening by a reception and banquet, held in the audi- 
ence room and parlors of 'the church. The supper was in a 
measure private, cards of invitation being issued to about seven 
hundred persons, comprising the members of the First Church, 
representatives from the other Baptist churches, and a few out- 
side friends. It was the gift of the venerable Mrs. Bebecca 
E. Bouse, one of the constituent members of the church. Mrs. 
Bouse, while in good health for a person of her advanced 
years, did not feel strong enough to come out, but was repre- 
sented by her children and children's children. Nearly six 
hundred persons were furnished with refreshments, which were 
admirably served by Heyse. The guests were seated at small 
tables, each decorated with bunches of violets, tea roses, and 
other flowers. A large table in the centre of the dining-room 
bore an epergne containing many rare flowers from private 
green-houses in the city, among them being a collection of or- 
chids which were especially noticeable. 

"Soon after seven o'clock the audience room of the church 
was filled by persons desirous of listening to speeches and music. 
Mrs. Stewart Chisholm sang a beautiful solo, and was heartily 
encored. Col. Harris made a short speech, and was followed 
by the Bev. Anson Smyth and Mr. Caleb Wraton. A quar- 
tette, consisting of Mrs. H. A. Wright, Mrs. S. Chisholm, Cap- 
tain A. N. Meade, and Mr. J. H. Hoyt, rendered " Auld Lang 
Syne." Letters and congratulations were then read, and more 
music was rendered. The evening's entertainment was ad- 
mirably planned and executed ; the universal opinion at the 
close being that the semi-centennial had been most happily cel- 
ebrated, and an auspicious beginning made of the second fifty 
years, whose close will make this influential church indeed 
venerable." 

A delightful solo was sung by Mrs. Wright, and was w T armly 
encored. Speeches were made by Dea. C. A. Smith and Dea. 



12 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

Ezra Thomas. A most hearty appreciation was expressed when 
the name of the efficient chairman of the Committee of Ar- 
rangements, Mr. C. B. Bernard, was mentioned. 

Little need be added to the above account of the jubilee 
celebration, save to say that the social was marked by ^a uni- 
versal cordiality and flow of good feeling on the part of the 
members toward each other, mingled with a hearty and devout 
recognition of God's goodness as the source of the manifold 
blessings which the church has enjoyed. 

Many members of sister churches, not confined to Baptist 
churches, participated joyfully in these services which commem- 
orated an event in which every Baptist, indeed every Christian, 
m Cleveland has a warm interest. There was general regret 
that some of the older members of the church, especially Mrs. 
R. E. Rouse, and Mr. and Mrs. N. C. Hills, and the venerable 
Dea. C. S. Butts and wife of the Euclid Avenue Church, 
were unable, through illness, to be present. 



THE EARLY HISTORY 



FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF CLEVELAND, O. 



BY B. F. ROUSE. 



[A Paper read at the Semi-centennial Anniversary, February 18, 1833. 

The first sermon ever preached in Cleveland was delivered by 
a Baptist minister. 

In a book named Incidents of Pioneer Life, by the Hon. 
Harvey Rice, Esq., of our city, we find a brief account of this 
man: 

" His name was Joseph Badger. He came as the first mis- 
sionary to the Western Reserve, to preach the Gospel. He ar- 
rived in the spring of 1800. 

" Mr. Badger was born in Windham, Mass., in the year 1757. 
He graduated at Yale College in the year 1785. He served in 
the war of the Revolution as a soldier. He was ordained in the 
year 1787, and served the church at Blandford, Mass., as pastor, 
where he remained fourteen years. 

" Prior to the year 1800, the Western Reserve was a land 
where might gave right, and every man was a law unto himself; 
and it was this class of men who gave tone to public sentiment 
and public morals." 

The second Baptist man (known to many of us) came to 
Cleveland in the year 1816, named Moses White. He was born 
in Warwick, Mass., February 25th, 1791. At the age of fifteen 
years he went to Boston, Mass. On becoming of age he re- 
moved to Providence, R. I. ; afterward went to Utica, 1ST. Y. , 
and in October, 1816, removed to Cleveland, Ohio, to remain. 
He had made a public profession of religion prior to coming to 



14 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

the village, and there being no Baptist church in Cleveland at 
the time, he united with the Baptist church at Euclid, where 
he retained his membership until the organization of the First 
Baptist Church of Cleveland, of which he was one of the con- 
stituent members. 

Another Baptist man arrived at Cleveland October 17, 1830, 
named Benjamin Bouse. He was born in Boston, Mass., March 
23, 1795. He went to New York City in the year 1824, where 
he remained until the fall of 1830. His early church-life was in 
connection with the Rev. Dr. Channing's (Unitarian) church, 
Boston, Mass. He was afterwards converted, and united with 
the Third Baptist Church of Boston, being baptized by the pas- 
tor, the Rev. Daniel Sharp, D. D. 

These two brethren, Moses White and Benjamin Rouse, and 
their wives, and Mrs. Mary Belden, were all the Baptists known 
in the village of Cleveland in the year 1830. 

Cleveland, at that time, was a beautiful village of ten hun- 
dred and seventy-six inhabitants. There were three organized 
churches : old Trinity, First Presbyterian, and First Methodist. 
The last-named church numbered seven members only. 

There was one meeting-house, built of wood, and situated on 
the corner of St. Clair and Seneca streets, belonging to Trinity 
Parish. 

There were two resident pastors, the Rev. Mr. McElroy, rec- 
tor of Trinity Parish, and the Rev. Stephen I. Bradstreet, pas- 
tor of the First Presbyterian Church. Connected with the 
last-named church was a Sunday-school, which was closed dur- 
ing the winter months. 

In the summer of the year 1832, the Baptist friends corre- 
sponded with the Rev. Jonathan Going, Corresponding Secre- 
tary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, of New 
York, with reference to a Baptist missionary for Cleveland, 0. ; 
and we find that a man by the name of Rev. Mason Bell was 
under appointment for Ohio ; and while communicating the 
fact, the Secretary adds: "We all feel the importance of such 
a place as Cleveland, and should the Rev. Mason Bell not ac- 
cept, we shall soon appoint another." Mr. Bell did not accept. 

The Baptist friends had not enjoyed any regular Sabbath 



EARL Y HISTOR Y. 15 

services up to November, 1832. There were a few old worthies 
itinerating through the Western Reserve, who preached the Gos- 
pel in the old-fashioned way, and who would occasionally come 
through the village, and being invited, would remain over on 
Sabbath and conduct religious services, sometimes in a private 
house, but more frequently in the brick court-house which was 
situated in the southwest corner of the Public Square, opposite 
the present Forest City House. 

I can call to mind the names of several of these ministering 
brethren, names which will sound familiar to very few in this 
audience. There were Elder Moses "Ware, Elder Henry Hud- 
son, Elder T. B. Stephenson, Elder James Hovey, Elder Dem- 
ick and Elder Mack ; and I well remember a service held in the 
loiver hall-way of the court house on a very cold Sabbath day in 
winter, with no fire to warm the cheerless place. Court being 
in session, it was not thought best to allow the audience-room to 
be used for religious purposes. 

As the population of the village increased, a Baptist family 
would now and then be found, and they were very warmly wel- 
comed by those already here. 

In the month of November, 1832, a Baptist minister named 
Rev. Richmond Taggart, from Lockport, N. Y., on his way 
west stopped off at Cleveland. He was an entire stranger to 
every one in the village ; but making himself known to the 
Baptist friends as a Baptist minister in good standing, he was 
invited to hold a preaching service on the ensuing Sabbath, and 
an upper room in the Cleveland Academy was obtained and a 
service was held. 

On the 19th day of November, 1832, the Baptist friends 
held a meeting in the above-mentioned building for the purpose 
of forming themselves into a society, to be named " The First 
Baptist Society of Cleveland, Ohio ;" and at an adjourned meet- 
ing, held on the 4th of December following, they elected offi- 
cers, including president, secretary, treasurer, and five trustees, 
and made a lease of the Cleveland Academy for one year from 
December, 1832, at a rental of sixty dollars per annum, the 
building to be used twice on the Sabbath and two evenings 
during the week. 



16 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

After consultation, an invitation was extended to Eev. Bich- 
mond Taggart to hold preaching services twice on Sabbath, 
which invitation he accepted, and a regular Baptist preaching 
service was thus begun in the village of Cleveland and has been 
continued up to this time. 

About this time, there came to Cleveland, from England, 
a young man named Thomas Goodman, Having been educat- 
ed as a Baptist, he attended these services at the Academy, and 
becoming interested in the matter of openly professing his faith 
in Christ by baptism, he called upon Elder Taggart and made 
known his desires. 

There being no Baptist church as yet organized, the Elder 
called a few brethren together (Moses White, Benjamin Eouse 
and others) and stated the case to them. After consultation, it 
was thought advisable to invite the young man to relate his 
Christian experience before them, and, if satisfactory, to ap- 
point a day on which to administer the ordinance of baptism. 

Mr. Goodman came before the brethren and related the way 
in which the Lord had led him, and expressed his earnest de- 
sire to make a public profession of his faith in Christ. The 
brethren were deeply interested in his experience, and believing 
in the genuineness of his conversion, resolved that he might be 
baptized, and that a certificate setting forth the facts in the 
case should be granted him by the acting pastor, which certifi- 
cate he could present to the church after its organization, and 
upon the statement of the facts in the case, he could become a 
member thereof. 

About this time there came three others, Mr. Caleb Wraton, 
Mrs. Elizabeth Taylor, and Mrs. S. M. Cutler, asking to be bap- 
tized on the profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus. They 
related their experiences, which were satisfactory, and the breth- 
ren gladly gave their consent, and Sabbath, January 13, 1833, 
was set apart as the time when these four should be baptized. 

I have two accounts of this first baptism in Cleveland which 
I will read. 

Brother Thomas Goodman, (now of Chicago, 111.,) writing 
me twelve years since, refers to the occasion in these words : 

"It was a calm, bright day. The little band of Baptists went down to 



EARL Y HISTOR Y. 17 

the lake, just where the old frame building stood in later years, known as 
the Pittsburgh & Wells ville Depot. The old pier was adjacent on the left. 
An opening was cut in the ice, and we stepped from the ice into the 
water, and going off a little distance, found the water just deep enough. 
The occasion was delightful and solemn." 

Deacon Benjamin Bouse left a record in a cop} 7 of a letter ad- 
dressed to Heman Lincoln, Esq., of Boston, Mass., in which he 
writes : 

"Last Lord's day, January 13, 1833, was a memorable day for us at 
Cleveland. The large room in which we are accustomed to hold our ser- 
vices was crowded to overflowing, and at the close of the services in the 
afternoon, the congregation and many others from the village repaired to 
the bank overlooking the lake, while the little company of Baptists and the 
candidates continued down to the waterside. After singing an appropriate 
hymn, and a prayer by Elder Taggart, the candidates went fcown into the 
water and were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. The day was 
calm, sky unclouded ; it was like a summer's day, although in midwinter.' 

A meeting was held on Sabbath evening, January 20th, 
1833, to take the preliminary steps toward the formation of a 
Baptist church. After a prayerful discussion of the matter, the 
following resolution was adopted : 

Resolved: that a committee of five brethren be appointed to draft a 
summary of Scripture doctrine, to be adopted as a test of faith, in the unity 
of which shall consist the cement of fellowship in our anticipated church." 

The committee was appointed, and reported at a called meet- 
ing on January 23d, 1833. The report was accepted and com- 
mittee discharo-ed, and the articles of faith were then taken 
up separately, and were fully and faithfully discussed until 
time for adjournment. The meeting adjourned to January 
30, 1833, at which time the discussion was continued, and a few 
amendments added, and the report, thus amended, was adopted 
as their articles of faith by the unanimous vote of the brethren 
present. A covenant was also reported and adopted, and the 
third Saturday in February, 1833, was set apart as the day on 
which to convene an ecclesiastical council to examine their ar- 
ticles of faith and covenant, and, if satisfactory to the council, 
the little band should then be recognized as a Baptist church in 
regular order. 



1§ HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

Invitations were sent to the following-named Baptist 
churches : Buffalo, Kmgsville, Chester, Euclid, and Kockport, 
asking them to send pastors and delegates to form a council for 
recognition, to convene at Cleveland, February 16, 1833. 

The Baptist friends held a meeting on the evening of Feb- 
ruary 9th, 1833, to form themselves into a conference, prepara- 
tory to the meeting of the council. Elder Taggart was elected 
chairman, and Brother Thomas Whelpley was elected clerk. 
The friends present having letters of dismission and commend- 
ation from other Baptist churches, and those holding certificates 
of baptism given them by Elder Taggart, placed their letters 
and certificates in the hand of the clerk, and resolved them- 
selves into a Baptist conference. The articles of faith were 
then read, and the following names were signed : 

Brother Moses White, Sister Rebecca E. Rouse, 

" Benjamin Rouse, " Mary Belden, 

" Thomas Whelpley, " Harriet P. Hickox, 

" Jeduthan Adams, " Letha Griffith, 

John Seaman, " Sophia Stockwell, 

Horatio Ranney, '■ Harriet Malvin, 

" Leonard Stockwell, " Elizabeth Taylor, 

Thomas Goodman, " S. M. Cutler, 
Brother John Malvin. 

Fourteen had letters, three had certificates of baptism. 

Brother Caleb Wraton was out of town, and did not unite 
with the church until afterward. 

After placing their signatures to the articles of faith, they 
then entered into solemn covenant relationship in the words 
of the covenant previously adopted, and adjourned to the 16th 
day of February ensuing, to await the action of the council. 

February 6th, 1833, a Sabbath school was organized in the 
usual place for holding meetings. Thomas Whelpley, Esq., 
was elected superintendent. The attendance at the first session 
was 28. April 15th, 1833, the school had increased to 40 mem- 
bers. In a copy of a letter written by Deacon Rouse to a friend 
April 15, 1833, he says : 

"We have now seven Sunday schools in and about the village: four 
connected with our churches and three mission schools. Our infidel friends 



EARLY HISTORY. 19 

are much alarmed, and are exerting themselves to bring our schools into 
disrepute. They are publishing tracts and giving them free distribution in 
the village; but they cannot prevail. The truth of the matter is this: a 
spirit of religious inquiry has gotten hold on the hearts of the people, and 

infidelity may well tremble" 

The second superintendent of the Sabbath school must 
have been Brother William Beebe. He was received into the 
church by letter, December 5th, 1834, from the Baptist church 
of Oswego, N. Y. He must have been elected superintendent 
soon after uniting with the church. The first superintend- 
ent, Thomas AVhelpley, being absent from the town quite fre- 
quently, did not desire to retain the office, and Brother Beebe, 
being admirably fitted for it, was chosen, and was filling the 
place at the time of his death, which occurred quite suddenly 
at his home, July 3d, 1835. The record says : 

' ' Brother William Beebe was a truly devoted and pious brother . He 
was happy in the enjoyment of religion in his life, and happy in death. In 
his death the church has lost a valuable member, and the Sabbath school a 
faithful and successful superintendent." 

The delegates chosen by the several churches previously ad- 
dressed, assembled at the Cleveland Academy (the usual place 
of meeting) on the morning of February 16, 1833, and organ- 
ized the council by electing Elder Moses Ware moderator and 
Royal Millard clerk. Brother Moses White, having been duly 
appointed for the purpose, presented the letter of the church, 
the articles of faith, and the covenant. After mature delibera- 
tion, the council passed the following resolutions : 

1st, Approving the action of the conference. 

2d, Approving the articles of faith and covenant as being in 
accordance with Bible doctrine. 

3d, That they extend the right hand of fellowship to them, 
[the covenanting members] as a cjiurch in gospel order. 

4th, That this council expect the church to be under obli- 
gation to obtain and support an evangelical ministry among 
themselves. 

The recognition services were as follows : 
Sermon by Elder Moses Ware. 



20 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

Eight hand of fellowship by Elder Richmond Taggart. 
Charge to the church by Elder T. B. Stephenson. 
The exercises were very interesting, and the little band had 
now become a church, to be known as "The Eiest Baptist 
Church of Cleveland, Ohio." 

The officers of the church first appointed were as follows : 

Rev. Richmond Taggart, Acting Pastor. 

Moses White, Ucting Deacons. 
Benjamin Rouse, ) 

Thomas Whelpley, Esq., Church Clerk. 
Thomas Goodman, Assistant Church Clerk. 
Benjamin Rouse, Treasurer. 

The first additions to the church were made on the second 
Sabbath after the recognition services (March 3d, 1833). At 
that time three persons,, Mrs. N. C. Hills, Mrs. Reeves and Mr. 
John Cox, were baptized on profession .of their faith in Christ, 
in the presence of a very large and solemn congregation. Mrs. 
N. C. Hills is still a member with us; Mrs. Reeves was long 
since dismissed from us, and Mr. John Cox is a member of the 
Euclid Avenue Baptist Church. 

The pastorate of the Rev. Richmond Taggart was not of 
long duration; He arrived at Cleveland November 18th, 1832, 
and by request of the society commenced a preaching service 
on Sabbath, in an upper room in the old academy, and contin- 
ued the service until his resignation, which he tendered in May, 
1833. 

He was compensated, in part, by the Ohio Baptist State Con- 
vention, while serving the church, and by reason of this fact, 
our church has been called " a child of the Convention." 

The Rev. Richmond Taggart was said to be a lineal descend- 
ant of the Rev. John Clark, D. D., of Rhode Island, who, next 
to Roger Williams, was one of the founders of that State. He 
was a man of fair address, and was considered sound in his 
views of Gospel truth. His sermons were instructive and ear- 
nestly delivered; he was well fitted for pioneer work, and en- 
joyed the respect and sympathy of the church while serving 
them as pastor. 

The Sunday school received his support and fostering care, 



EARLY HISTORY. 21 

and its influence was being felt in the village and congregation. 
A Sabbath sunrise prayer-meeting was commenced during his 
pastorate, which was continued for several months. He ten- 
dered his resignation May 5th, 1833, having served the church 
about seven months; the additions to the membership up to 
that time being as follows: by baptism, 8; letter, 21: total, 29. 
The church, anticipating the resignation of Elder Taggart, 
had been corresponding with the American Home Mission So- 
ciety in regard to a missionary, who should be under ap- 
pointment, and should receive a part of his support, from 
that society. In July, 1833, the good news was received by the 
church that the Rev. Judah L. Richmond had accepted an ap- 
pointment as missionary pastor for Cleveland, and that he would 
immediately commence his journey for his field of labor, and 
that he might be expected to arrive about the first of August. 
Brother Richmond and wife arrived at Cleveland August 3d, 
1833, and were warmly greeted by the little church. The new 
pastor was permitted to administer the ordinance of baptism 
upon the first Sabbath after his coming. 

He was a young man, about twenty-six years of age, had 
studied at Hamilton, N. Y., and was impatient to commence 
work for his Lord. His pulpit ability was fair ; his manner, 
while diffident, was earnest. He had a lovely Christian spirit, 
earnest piety, and was "willing to be accounted as nothing" if 
he could by any means bring sinners to believe in Jesus. 

He was very industrious in his pastoral duties, visiting the 
little flock, becoming acquainted with each member of his con- 
gregation, stimulating their religious growth, and by his per- 
sonal solicitations inducing many to attend the preaching 
services and prayer-meetings. In this way he won the love and 
regard of both church and congregation. He was, however, 
very strongly drawn toward a foreign field of labor, and seemed 
awaiting a call in that direction with much solicitude. 

In the spring of 1834, Mr. Richmond received a letter from 
the Rev. Bowles, D. D., Secretary, requesting himself and wife 
to meet the Foreign Mission Board at New York, on April 
30th, for examination as to their qualifications for a foreign 
field of labor. Very soon thereafter, he requested letters of 
dismission and commendation for himself and wife, and ten 



22 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

dered his resignation, to take effect at once. His resignation 
was reluctantly accepted, as the church had become much at- 
tached to him and regretted parting with him. 

His pastorate ended April 27th, 1834 ; he having served the 
church about nine months; the additions being as follows : by 
baptism, 9; letter, 26: total, 35. 

Again the church was without a pastor. They were cast 
down but not dismayed, as their confidence was in Him who 
had declared Himself to be "the Shepherd of the sheep." 

The necessity for a place of worship which they could call 
their own, adapted not only to their present wants but to 
the future needs of a growing population, began to be press- 
ed on their hearts ; their place of meeting being very poorly 
adapted to present necessities. They began to realize the fact 
that they could not expect to attain to any permanent standing 
and influence in the community without a permanent church 
home. With this fact in view they prepared a subscription pa- 
per and commenced soliciting pledges for a building fund, pros- 
pecting for a suitable location, and were having plans drawn 
and every preparation made toward a speedy commencement of 
the work; but the very great need of a pastor to lead in religious 
labor among the people, and to encourage the church in every 
possible way for the large work they were about to undertake, 
was deeply felt by them. 

About this time they wrote again to the American Home 
Mission Society, laying before that society the situation of 
the church, and asking to be remembered, should a suitable 
person present himself with the right qualifications for the 
place; and, in closing the letter, say: "Under God, we indeed 
feel our present prosperity, in part, is due to your sympathy 
and liberality, and we are very hopeful the time will come 
when we shall most gladly repay you with great interest." 
For the fulfillment of this hope expressed in the summer of 
1834, we refer you to the report of Brother C. P. Leland. 

The church had been without a pastor for a few months 
only, when it was learned that the Eev. Elijah F. Willey, of 
Lansingburgh, N. Y., was coming West to settle. Through 
relatives of his in Cleveland, influences were brought to bear 
in favor of extending to him a call to the pastorate of the 



EA RL Y HISTOR Y. 23 

church. After some investigation, the church extended a call 
to him, June 15, 1834, which was accepted, and lie entered 
upon his work at once, as a regular pulpit supply. 

Brother Willey was a very ahle preacher, and had been a suc- 
cessful pastor prior to coming to Cleveland. His pulpit efforts 
were very attractive, and his sermons were listened to by crowd- 
ed audiences. Sabbath services at that time were held in the 
large audience room of the court house, and the prayer meet- 
ings in the upper room at the old academy on St. Clair street. 

He continued as a regular pulpit supply until July 22, 1835, 
when, at his own request, he was relieved from his regular du- 
ties, and sometime afterward requested a letter of dismission, 
which was granted. 

The additions during the time he served the church were : 
by baptism, 1 ; letter, 16 : total, 17. 

The increasing population of Cleveland, which had now be- 
come a city of five thousand inhabitants ; the large congrega- 
tions which had crowded their audience room on Sabbath ; and 
the growing membership of the church ; intensified the desire of 
the brethren for the completion of their house of worship. 
The necessity felt the year previous had now become an imper- 
ative duty. The church was poor, financially, but rich in faith ; 
and with a courage born of Christian manhood, they pushed 
with renewed energy the work commenced in 1834, and contin- 
ued it until completion. 

The house was built of brick, on a lot at the corner of 
Seneca and Champlain streets, which was considered an eligible 
location at the time. The dimensions of the house, were 55 
feet by 80 feet, with spire furnished with bell and town clock; 
all at a cost of about fourteen thousand dollars. 

After the resignation of the Rev. E. F. Willey, the church 
was served a few months by the Eev. Ebenezer Crane — a gradu- 
ate from Newton Theological Seminary, Mass. 

A pulpit committee was appointed to supply the desk until 
such time as they should enter the new building, the comple- 
tion of which was hoped for within a very few months. With in- 
tense interest they were anticipating the time when, in the 
providence of Cod, they should enjoy a permanent pastorate 
and have an abiding place for the church. 



94 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

Their past experience had been fruitful in incident and 
blessing and they loved the place where the Lord had so abund- 
antly bestowed his loving favors upon them, and they grieved to 
leave the old academy. I find a memorandum upon the records 
which may well have voiced the feelings of their hearts : — 

"We are soon to leave the old academy, where first we began to hold 
religious services. With what prayerful anxiety we watched the growth of 
the little church which was here organized. The history of these labors, 
sorrows, and joys can never be forgotten by us." 

Anticipating a removal into the new sanctuary, the church 
voted to hold meetings for humiliation and prayer ; and for 
several weeks prior to the dedication of the house of worship, 
and after that event, these were continued in the old academy 
(as the rooms for social meetings were not completed in the new 
building), and the spirit of the Master came down upon them 
with power. The church was revived, their hearts were melted 
together in sympathy and love, sinners were converted, and 
constant additions were made to their membership. 

The day set apart for the dedication of their house of wor- 
ship was near at hand, every preparation had been made, and 
now, with earnest desire and prayerful hearts, they awaited the 
time appointed. 

Ere long the morning of the 25th of February, 1836, had ar- 
rived. The Kev. Elisha Tucker, of Buffalo, N. Y., (who had 
been invited to preach the sermon) was in the city, and man}' 
hearts were full of gladness. At the hour appointed, the large 
audience room was crowded with a happy congregation, and 
the preacher gave as his text Psalm 122:1, "I was glad 
when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord."' 

I find upon the records this note : 

"Blessed with a large and beautiful sanctuary, 
Blessed with peace and love among ourselves, 
Blessed with a revival of religion, 
Bless the Lord, oh, my soul ! and forget not all his benefits." 

April 25th, 1836, a call was extended to the Rev. Levi 
Tucker, of West Philadelphia, Pa., to become the pastor of the 
church. He accepted the call, and in July following entered 
fully upon his work under most happy auspices. The church 



EARL Y HISTOR Y. 25 

was most happily united in every way, and with longing hearts 
had been awaiting his coming. 

The Rev. Levi Tucker was eminently fitted for the place, lie 
had strong sympathies, and very genial manners ; he was bless- 
ed with a large heart and cultured mind ; he possessed pulpit 
gifts of rare order, and used all his powers for the building up 
of the church, and for the good of his congregation, which was 
large and attentive. Many heard the Word with gladness, and 
additions were frequent and numerous. A spirit of religious 
inquiry rested upon the congregation, and a continued refresh- 
ing attended the church up to and including the year 1840, 
which year, by reason of the great work of grace then en- 
joyed, was called "the Year of the Right Hand of the Most 
High." In that year nearly two hundred united with the 
church : 137 by baptism, 50 by letter, and 3 by restoration. 

Mr. Tucker served the church with great acceptance until 
November, 1842, when he tendered his resignation in order to 
accept a call from the Baptist church at Buffalo, N. Y. He 
left the city in December following, having been pastor of the 
church over six years. 

His pastorate is often referred to by the older members of 
the church with much pleasure, and the memory of himself and 
wife is consecrated in many hearts. The additions during the 
six years of his service were 432. 

After the resignation of Brother Tucker, the church w r as 
without a pastor about six months, when the Rev. John H. 
Walden, from Essex county, N. Y., accepted a call from 
the church, and entered upon his labors in June, 1843. Brother 
Walden was considered an able and successful pastor, and 
brought to his Cleveland charge a large experience in the min- 
istry of the Lord Jesus. He had a warm and sympathetic 
heart, and a very earnest manner. He was eminently a Bible 
student, and his sermons were practical. His theme was "Re- 
conciliation to God." He greatly delighted in seeing sinners 
brought to Christ, and was permitted to enjoy a season of 
revival in the winter of 1843 and 1844. As the result of this 
71 persons were added to the church during his first year's 
labor. 

It was during his pastorate that a Sunday school was or- 



26 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

ganized on Erie street, near the corner of Eagle, which in af- 
ter years culminated in the Second Baptist Church, now known 
as the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church. Mr. Walden tendered 
his resignation to the church in June, 1846, by reason of ill 
health, having served the church about three years. The ad- 
ditions during the time were : by baptism, 100 ; letter, 87 : 
total, 187. 

In this paper I have given you a mere outline history of the 
early church from its beginning in 1833, to the resignation of 
Rev. J. H. Walden in 1846. It will be the privilege of others 
to speak of the later history, including the pastorates of S. W. 
Adams, D. D., A. H. Strong, D. D., A. J. F. Behrends, D. D., 
G. W. Gardner, D. D., and our present pastor, Rev. P. S. 
Moxom ; it will be their pleasant task also to speak of the 
characters of the Christian men and women who toiled and 
prayed, carried burdens, and made large sacrifices for the 
church, and have been called home to enjoy the rewards of 
"the good and faithful servants who have been faithful over 
a few things." 

Permit me to open one leaf in the later experience of the 
church. It was after they had entered into the new house of 
worship. The house had been dedicated, the church was 
blessed with an earnest and successful pastor, large congre- 
gations crowded the sanctuary on Sabbath, frequent additions 
were made to their membership, the spirit of the Master dwelt 
with them, and every element of prosperity seemed to attend 
them, and they rejoiced with a great joy in that which had 
been accomplished ; but their joy was tempered with an anx- 
iety which could not be ignored. While building their house 
of worship, they had contracted an indebtedness of about 
eight thousand dollars, that must be carried by loans for 
the time being, but eventually must be paid. 

The membership of the church was made up of young men, 
tradesmen, mechanics, lawyers, clerks, etc., who had come to 
the rising city hoping to make money. They were all compar- 
atively poor ; there was not a wealthy man among them ; but 
they were brave, and trusted in God, believing He would help 
them, if they would make a strong effort to help themselves. 
The history of those years of struggle I have not time to give : 



EARL Y HISTOR Y. 2 7 

suffice it to say, the members would meet together and plan and 
pledge — and pledge again, and again, until there seemed noth- 
ing more to pledge. The bell was once attached for debt, and 
sold. Brother S. Ranney bought it in, and let it ring. The 
lamps and chandeliers were once in danger, but Brethren Sea- 
man and Smith took good care that they should remain in 
their places. It was said of Brother John Seaman that he 
gave more thought to the finances of the church than to his 
own business. Illustration : Some crisis in the matter of church 
finance had come needing prompt attention. One morning, as 
he came into his store he said to his partner, "Smith, you go 
to the meeting to-night, and put me down for a thousand dol- 
lars, and you put down a thousand, and go over to Sylvester 
Ranney and tell him to put down a thousand. Each of us will 
take a third. That will be about right, I guess." And it was 
put down. They were equal to any emergency, great or small. 
What could the dear old church have done without such men 
as John Seaman, Sylvester Ranney, and William T. Smith, and 
others of the same staying qualities f It was a time that tried 
men's pockets, as well as souls. They were sometimes at their 
" Witts'" end, but fortunately they had a "Bishop," who by 
his wise counsel and generous liberality brought relief and lift- 
ed the burden. 

While straining every effort to lift the burden of indebt- 
edness, they did not fail in their contributions to the vari- 
ous objects of benevolence. Foreign and Home Missions, 
Bible and Tract Societies, State Convention and Association, 
Sunday schools and Bethel, and the poor in the church, all 
shared in their sympathy and purse. The amounts were not 
large, it is true, but all did what they could. 

Before closing this paper, I will refer, in a word, to one 
whose name has been mentioned only as a constituent member 
of the church, but whose example and influence were largely 
felt in the village and church at that early day. She came to 
Cleveland, fifty-three years ago last October, a young Christian 
woman, thirty years of age ; to-day she is still with us, a 
widow, past four score years. She consecrated herself to Christ 
early in life, and ever stood ready at the call of her Master. 
Her daily prayer was : " Here am I Lord — send me." She en- 



28 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

tered upon religious work very soon after her arrival in Cleve- 
land. She commenced a personal visitation into every home in 
the village, and continued it until every one had been en- 
tered. She carried the Gospel of the Lord Jesus in her hand, 
and a glowing love for souls in her heart, and among the wives 
and mothers of the village she found many of the Lord's hid- 
den ones, who had scarcely dared to whisper a prayer, because 
of the prevailing infidelity among the fathers and husbands. 
When the infant church was in swaddling clothes, she was its 
nursing mother ; she blessed it with her prayers and tears, and 
surrounded it with her loving anxiety. It was her greatest joy 
to see the little one grow, and thrive, and become strong. 
Thank God, she is with us to-day, a benediction to her child- 
ren and to the church of which she is a humble and loving- 
member : 



THE PASTORATES FROM 1846 TO 1883. 



BY L. PRENTISS. 



Standing upon an eminence of half a century, we, to-day, 
look back and tenderly recall some of the more prominent 
events and actors in the history of the church ; not as a matter 
of mere curiosity, or to gratify a selfish pride over what has 
been accomplished, but with a thoughtful interest, and a true 
appreciation of that history, and of those who have aided in 
making it what it is. 

I am to speak of this history, and the pastorates from 1846 
to the semi-centennial day — February 16, 1883, — these pastor- 
ates being those of Dr. S. W. Adams, Dr. A. H. Strong, Dr. 
A. J. Behrends, Dr. G. W. Gardner and Rev. P. S. Moxom, 
our present pastor. You have already listened to the history 
•of the church down to the time when Dr. Adams became its 
pastor ; and the statistics of its membership and work to the 
present time will be given you ; and now I call your attention 
to the lives and work of some of those who have greatly aided 
in achieving the results shown in these statistics — results 
which, in the light of this 'history, become eloquent witnesses 
of the vigor and fruitfulness of the church, and the devotion, 
generosity, and earnest activity of its members, and the effect- 
ive leadership of its pastors. There has ever been a good de- 
gree of thoughtfalness, intelligence and moral power in the 
membership, and an interest in sound and substantial preach- 
ing, and no demand for that which was merely sensational. 

Dr. Seymour W. Adams began his pastorate of the church 
on the second Sabbath of November, 1846, in answer to its 
unanimous call, and at once entered upon his work with 
a quiet but effective earnestness and energy, and a whole-heart- 



30 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

ed devotion to the interests of the church. He had been pas- 
tor, for the two previous years, of the Baptist church in his 
native place, Vernon, New York ; and although young, and 
with little experience, he possessed a maturity of judgment 
and a thoroughness of scholarship, which at once commanded 
the confidence and regard of the church. He was dignified, 
yet always unassuming and friendly ; of a quiet and re- 
tiring disposition, yet of a strong nature, and unques- 
tioned moral courage. He was no respecter of persons, and 
the rich and poor alike soon learned to love him because of his 
genuine sympathy and disinterestedness. His just and kindly 
nature and special interest in those in humble outward cir- 
cumstances greatly endeared him to them. He evinced, from 
the first, great industry and system in his work, and was emi- 
mently patient, hopeful, and judicious. These characteristics 
and habits of work were so marked that they seemed to be a 
part of himself, and were unmistakably genuine and controll- 
ing traits of character. As a preacher, he was sound and schol- 
arly, and, although not what is termed a popular preacher, he 
was always earnest and instructive, and interested the thought- 
ful. Such was the young preacher and pastor in 1846 ; and 
the years of his long pastorate never lessened but increased 
these sterling virtues. The church grew in numbers and 
strength during his ministry ; and there were always strong- 
men and women and an earnest membership to co-operate with 
him. The church continued to worship in the old house on 
Seneca street until the spring of 1855, when it removed to our 
present house — a change which has added greatly to the use- 
fulness, as well as the comfort, of the church. 

The whole number baptized during his pastorate was 282, 
of which the largest number for any one year — 85 — was in 
1858-9, during the great revival at that time. The instructing 
and training of these converts, and especially those of them 
who were young, was most faithfully attended to by him, and 
his influence upon them in the Young People's Meeting and in 
pastoral visitation was very great. They loved him, because 
they not only saw the interest he had in them, but they felt 
the genuineness of his affection, and his great desire for their 
growth in Christian character. In the sermon preached by 



THE PASTORATES. 31 

him on the occasion when the church left its former place of 
worship, in the spring of 1855, he referred to the Youths' 
Prayer Meeting, and said: "In the autumn of 1849 it was 
established, and to the present day it has maintained no doubt- 
ful existence. The original number in attendance was not 
large, but the chosen room for assemblage now lacks capacity 
for those who gather." 

There were a number of young men who entered the minis- 
try during his pastorate, among whom are Bev. Wayland Hoyt, 
F. Tolhurst, John Westover, T. R. Howlett, and Putnam Bish- 
op ; and, since, Bev. H. C. Delano, and F. Clatworthy have 
also gone out from the church as ministers. All of these have 
proved highly useful ministers of the Gospel ; one in particular 
being one of the first in the denomination in pulpit power. 
The missionary work of the church during his pastorate was 
large and fruitful, showing that the church has been of a mis- 
sionary character in its working as well as in its giving. 

The Mission Sunday School on the corner of Erie street 
and Woodland avenue, and out of which grew the Second (now 
the Euclid Avenue) Baptist Church, was sustained, mainly, by 
members of this church. Dea. J. Stafford was the first super- 
intendent. The school was first organized in a small chapel 
belonging to a German church, on the corner of Erie and Eagle 
streets, but was soon removed to the school-house on the corner 
of Erie street and Woodland avenue. Mr. S. W. Holliday, then 
a. member of this church, was the next superintendent, and 
was succeeded by Mr. L. Prentiss, in 1847. Soon after this, 
the school was removed to the chapel built for it, on the rear 
of the lot on the corner of Erie and Ohio streets, where it be- 
came one of the then largest schools in the city. Among the 
teachers were Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Dean, Miss Mary Dean, 
Miss Julia Wheeler and her sisters, Martha and Mrs. Clark. 
In 1851, forty-two members were dismissed from the church 
to aid in establishing the Second Church, and the school then 
became the school of that church. The large and flourishing 
Euclid Avenue Baptist Church is largely the fruit of these ear- 
ly efforts. 

In 1851, a mission school was established and conducted, 
mainly by members of this church, under the superintendence 



32 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

of Mr. L. Prentiss, on the West Side, out of which grew the 
Third Baptist Church in 1853, fifteen members being then 
dismissed to aid in organizing that church. 

Many of the members of our church cooperated with mem- 
bers from the Second Baptist Church in establishing and carry- 
ing on a Sunday school on Scovill avenue'. Judge Bishop hav- 
ing been superintendent for a time was succeeded by Mr. E. 
P. Myers. Out of this school grew the Tabernacle (now the 
Willson Avenue) Baptist Church, and thirty-eight members 
were dismissed to aid in its formation, in 1868, during the pas- 
torate of Dr. Strong. That earnest and growing church illus- 
trates the great value of that early missionary work. 

In January, 1852, the Cottage Sunday school was estab- 
lished in a small building on a lot on St. Clair street, near 
Dodge street, given for that purpose by Judge Bishop and Mr. 
James Eoot, of Hartford, Conn. Deacon B. Rouse was the 
first superintendent, and was succeeded by his son, Deacon B. 
F. Rouse, under whose superintendence for about fourteen 
years, it became a large and very efficient school. A large num- 
ber were there converted -and became members of this church; 
and, in 1870, one hundred members were dismissed to aid in 
the establishment of the Cottage (now the Superior Street) 
Baptist Church. 

The going out of these bands from the church was never 
caused or attended by any discord, but was always in a spirit of 
Christian harmony and affection, and with the prayers and 
blessings of the church. The same spirit has always prevailed 
between this church and these daughter churches. 

There are some no longer with us who are inseparably asso- 
ciated, in the memories of most of us, with Dr. Adams, as 
among his advisers and the generous friends of the church and 
all its enterprises. First among these was Judge Bishop, one 
of his most intimate friends and advisers. With him the 
church and the interests of religion stood first; and he gave 
freely of time, care and means for these. The missionary en- 
terprises of the church were dear to him, and received his gen- 
erous support. When negotiations were pending for the 
purchase of the present place of worship, and the ability to do 
so depended on the sale of the old church property on Seneca 



THE PASTORATES. 33 

street at a given price, he generously took the property at the 
price named, at a loss of several thousand dollars to himself; 
and this he did cheerfully, for the sake of securing, as he said, 
a good house of worship, and a church home for his family. 
You will anticipate another name, that of Stillman Witt, as 
intimately associated with the later years of the pastorate of 
Dr. Adams, and also with that of Dr. Strong, as the wise coun- 
selor and generous giver towards the missionary and other en- 
terprises of the church. 

The free-will offering of time and service, in the faithful 
and very able leadership of the choir, by our deceased brother, 
Mr. E. 0. Eouse, for over twenty-nine years, gives his name a 
high place in* the appreciation and grateful regard of the 
church. I need not mention those among the living who were 
also among the trusted advisers of Dr. Adams, ^and ever the 
active friends and supporters of the church and its enterprises. 
You know them, and rejoice in their living presence among us. 

The last sermon of Dr! Adams, in his own pulpit, was on 
the 11 tli, and he died on the 27th, of September, 1864. He 
was eminently just and considerate, and managed his affairs 
with rare discretion and economy, and gave with liberality from 
his moderate income. He maintained a genuine hospitality, as 
many Christian friends and ministers will gratefully remember. 
In the State work of the denomination he was regarded as one 
of the most judicious advisers and steadfast friends. His con- 
siderateness and respect for others, bis uniform humility, kind- 
ness, patience and hopefulness, have left their lasting impression 
on the church, and contributed, in a large degree, to its well 
known unity and harmony. His virtues were not superficial, or 
merely intermittent glows of feeling, or the result of an easy- 
going or weak nature, but were real and reigning qualities of a 
quiet, yet strong, character. As to-day we in memory recall 
him as he lived and moved among us, and read in his face the 
clear evidence of the enthronement and power of such rare and 
practical virtues, let us not turn away or forget, but tenderly 
and thoughtfully think upon them, until the same virtues find 
their abiding home and living and reigning power in us. 

The church was without a pastor for a full year after the 
death of Dr. Adams, during most of which time our brother, 
c 



34 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

James M. Hoyt, preached for us, while, at the same time, he 
was filling out the quarter of a century of his faithful and 
efficient superintendence of the Sunday school. He had been 
licensed by the church to preach, and this pulpit service was a 
free labor of love, which will be ever remembered with grateful 
appreciation. 

Dr. A. H. Strong was unanimously called to the pastorate, 
and accepted and entered upon its duties the first Sabbath of 
October, 1865. He continued in the pastorate till July 1st, 
1872, when he resigned to enter upon the duties of president 
of Rochester Theological Seminary, to which office he had been 
elected, and which he felt it his duty to accept. He came to 
us in the freshness, strength and enthusiasm of early manhood, 
richly endowed with natural gifts and thorough scholarship, 
and animated by a conscientious and whole-hearted devotion to 
his work. Nearly all who are here to-day well know, from per- 
sonal acquaintance, of his high moral and religious character, 
his great industry, energy and decision, his clear, good judg- 
ment, his activity and usefulness as a pastor, and his earnestness 
and power as a preacher; and I need not do more than to give 
expression to the unabated love of the church and their high 
appreciation of his ministry. He found a church earnest and 
harmonious, and ready to cooperate with him; and the united 
work of pastor and people was greatly blessed. The previous 
pastorate of Dr. Adams had been a time of seed-sowing as well 
as in-gathering; and a rich harvest was gathered under the min- 
istry of Dr. Strong. The baptisms during the nearly seven 
years of his pastorate were 322, and 194 were received by letter. 
This large increase added to the congregation and the Sunday 
school, and the school has ever since fully maintained its large 
increase in numbers and the earnestness and efficiency of its 
workers. It was, and is, in very deed, the nursery of the 
church. The majority of the conversions, I think, are from the 
school; and the Young People's Meeting and Sunday school 
supply a large share of the religious training for the younger 
members of the church. This meeting was -efficiently main- 
tained, and the prayer-meetings of the church were well 
attended, instructive and earnest. The mission work of the 
church received the care and encouragement of Dr. Strong; 



THE PASTOR A TES. 3 5 

and the whole religious life and work of the church were 
fully maintained during his ministry. He was greatly en- 
deared to his people as a pastor, as well as highly appreciated 
as a man and preacher. He cared alike for the rich and 
poor in his pastoral work; and those in humble life were the 
objects of his sincere sympathy and appreciation. It was 
duty alone which called him away from the church — he 
feeling that he ivas specially called to the work of training 
young men for the ministry. 

After the close of his pastorate the church was without a 
pastor for eleven months, during much of which time the pul- 
pit was again acceptably supplied by Brother Hoyt. 

On June 6, 1873, Dr. A. J. F. Behrends became the pastor 
of the church, in answer to its unanimous call> and continued 
in that office until February 1st, 1876. The church life and 
work were fully maintained during his ministry. There were 
74 baptized, 105 received by letter, and 17 by experience — in 
all. 196, in his pastorate. His earnest desire for the conversion 
of souls and for the growth of the church in moral and relig- 
ious power was very great, and found special expression during 
the fall and winter af 1874-5, in the meetings then held. 

In 1874, the Idaka Sunday School was organized, and re- 
ceived his hearty endorsement and cooperation. The school 
had an attendance of about 128 scholars and teachers at its 
commencement, and now has an average attendance of about 
255 scholars and teachers, and is growing in strength and inte- 
rest. This work has been, and still is, generously sustained 
with means and workers from this church, Brethren K. P. My- 
ers, H. A. Sherwin, C. B. Parker, and Geo. P. Comey, Jr., 
having been, successively, superintendents. 

The Trinity Baptist Church was organized during the pas- 
torate of Dr. Behrends, and received his earnest aid and en- 
couragement, and the church again spared some of its valuable 
members to aid in the establishment and success of the new 
interest. The Euclid Avenue Baptist Churrh also aided in 
this enterprise, and the Trinity Baptist Church, under the 
faithful and efficient ministry of Eev. F. Tolhurst, has largely 
increased in numbers as well as in religious strength and 
usefulness. 



36 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 

In 1874, our sister, Mrs. S. W. Adams, was appointed as 
the missionary of the church, and has ever since filled that of- 
fice, and has greatly aided the pastors in the visitation of the 
church ; and has thus fittingly taken up, in part, the work of 
her deceased husband, preeminent as he was in his pastoral 
work. 

As a pastor, Dr. Behrends was friendly, unassuming, and 
sincerely interested in the people of his charge. He was a man 
of strong, large nature, and great earnestness, energy, inde- 
pendence, and moral courage. Of a devout spirit, his prayers 
were specially impressive and helpful. As a preacher, he pos- 
sessed rare power of the most solid character. United with a 
clear and strong grasp of his subject, lie had a full, ready and. 
choice command of language in which to clothe and enforce his 
strong thoughts. He was accustomed to go directly to the 
heart of his subject, and to arouse attention and interest at 
once, by the clearness, earnestness, and power of its presenta- 
tion. There was nothing of the merely sensational in his 
preaching ; but, on the other hand, he always addressed him- 
self directly to the best judgment and convictions of his hearers. 
To an intelligent and thoughtful church like this, such preach 
ing was not only interesting but it gave the truth larger and 
stronger meaning, and much of its force has gone into the 
thinking and lives of his hearers, as living forces for good. 

Eev. George W. Gardner, D.D., became the pastor of the 
church on the 20th of October, 1876, and continued to June 1st, 
J 878. As a preacher, he was scholarly, discriminating, and earn- 
est. He possessed large sympathy, and manifested a sincere de- 
votion to the work of the church. This was strongly marked in 
his interest in the young people and their meetings. These were 
well attended, and often led by him with much profit. As a 
pastor, he was gracious in manner, and friendly and active in 
visitation among the members of the church and congregation. 
He was an active friend of missions, and the State work of the 
denomination. There were 33 baptisms, 41 received by letter, 
and 2 by experience, during his ministry : in all, 76. A few 
months after the end of his ministry here, he became the pas- 
tor of a Baptist church at Marblehead, Mass., where his minis- 
try was very successful — a revival having commenced, soon 



THE PASTORATES. 37 

after, in that church, during which a large number were con- 
verted and added to the church. In the fall of 1881 he was 
elected president of Pella University, at Pella, Iowa, which 
office he still holds. His excellent scholarshij^, genial and dig- 
nified manner, his tact, good judgment and conscientious devo- 
tion to his work have rendered his presidency of the university 
a successful and satisfactory one. 

Our present pastor, Kev. Philip S. Moxom, commenced his 
ministry with the church, April 1st, 1879, and we have reason 
to rejoice to-day in the blessings which have attended the united 
work of pastor and people since that time. There have been, 
during that time, 80 baptized, 104 received by letter, 6 by ex- 
perience, and 1 restored: in all, 191. The congregation has 
much increased in numbers and interest ; and the preaching is 
alike instructive, earnest, and pointed, and holds the attention 
and interest of the congregation. The Sabbath evening 
preaching service, in particular, is much more largely attended, 
and is marked in its thoughtfulness and interest. The prayer 
meeting following it has proved a blessing to many, who, under 
the influence of the Sabbath services, having been convinced of 
their duty and need of salvation, have here been brought to de- 
cide that great question and commence a new life. 

The Young People's Meetings are very largely attended and 
interesting under the leadership of the pastor, who nearly al- 
ways attends and couducts them. 

The Sunday School is large, interesting, and earnest, and 
is more than ever the nursery of the church ; and is greatly 
aided by the presence and work of the pastor. The school has 
been blessed with a succession of earnest and able superintend- 
ents during the period of which I am speaking : Brethren J. 
M. Hoyt, R. P. Myers, Colgate Hoyt, and Charles A. Smith. 

There is a large number of young people in the church and 
congregation, and this fact gives a commanding importance to 
the work referred to for their conversion and training. 

It is a gratifying fact that the church fully maintained its 
active Christian life and work during the times when we were 
without a pastor ; and was ever ready for earnest cooperation 
with its pastors. 

In addition to its own work and the missions, the church 



38 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 

has ever largely aided, by the activity and liberality of its 
members, the various general benevolent and religious institu- 
tions of the city. It largely contributed to the maintenance of 
the German Baptist Church on Scovill avenue, until it became 
self-supporting; and also assisted in the founding and sustain- 
ing of the German Baptist Publishing House in this city. A 
G-ernian Baptist Mission School on the South Side has been and 
still is aided by members of this church. The Baptist Union 
of this city has ever been most liberally sustained by this 
church, in its care for the future interests of the denomination 
in this city. The church and the Baptist Union lost one of 
their most generous supporters in the death of our Brother, 
Truman Dunham, during the past year. He will be gratefully 
remembered as one of the most faithful and liberal members of 
the church. , 

There is a large volume of individual work, full of living 
devotion and earnestness, which it is impossible for us to gather 
up and present, but which is all known and treasured up in the 
great book of remembrance above. 

It is believed that the present condition of the church in 
moral and religious tone, earnestness and efficiency, will com- 
pare favorably with its history. At the same time, there are fea- 
tures of its history which may well claim our thoughtful atten- 
tion. With the growth of our city in numbers and wealth, and 
the increasing differences in outward conditions, the real unity 
and moral poiver of the church may be weakened and endan- 
gered. In the early history of the church people were more 
nearly on a level, and their church life held the first and high- 
est place in their affections and aims ; and they gave liberally 
from their limited means to establish and sustain its growing 
work. 

We come together to-day, and look back from this half-cen- 
tury eminence upon the events and actors in the history of 
the church, not alone because our denominational character 
represents the true symbolism of one of the great ordinances 
established by our Lord, and a church composed ouly of true 
believers ; but because the church itself stands for the true idea 
of Christianity in its crowning object : the enthronement of 
the moral and religious truths of the Gospel in the characters 



THE PASTORATES. 39 

and lives of its members ; not merely in theory, but in practi- 
cal life. 

Pride and selfishness divide society into classes, and estab- 
lish widening distances between them; while Christianity would 
organize, not the church alone, but society, upon the' basis of a 
real unity, under the beneficent and reigning power of justice 
and love, inseparably united, as revealed in the Bible and in the 
person of Christ. It is with this high ideal that we turn to the 
past for its lessons, and to the future with hope of its ultimate 
achievement. 



STATISTICAL HISTORY OF THE FIFTY 
YEARS: 1833-1883. 



BY C. P. LELAND. 



It may not be inappropriate to preface the reading of the 
statistics, the summing up of the intensely interesting history 
to which we have listened with so much pleasure and profit, 
with a glance at two wonderful developments of material 
growth in this country, especially as both are wholly within the 
period pi the fifty years under review, and are powerful helpers 
in spreading the gospel. I refer to the railroad and the tele- 
graph. 

When this church was organized, in February, 1833, (only 
a little more than three years after Stephenson's triumphant 
trial trip between Manchester and Liverpool with his little lo- 
comotive, the "Rocket") there were in this country but four 
or five short pieces of railroad, of an experimental character, 
aggregating 229 miles, and all located east of the Alleghanies. 
This church was four years old when, in 1837, in all that vast 
region between the Alleghanies and the Pacific ocean, the Sab- 
bath-like stillness was startled by the first shriek of the pioneer 
locomotive. It was built in Philadelphia, and after a long and 
tedious trip, by various modes of transportation, was landed 
from a sail vessel at its destination, Toledo, Ohio, to be placed 
upon a little strap railroad, 33 miles in length, between Toledo 
and Adrian, Mich. Prior to the arrival of the little locomo- 
tive, horses furnished the motive power of this Erie & Kalama- 
zoo Railroad. 

It gives one a vivid realization of the wonderful rapidity of 
the growth of our great railroad system to know that Mr. A. 
W. Fairbanks, an active business man of our city, then pub- 



STATISTICAL HISTORY. 41 

lisher of the Toledo Blade > assisted in unloading this locomo- 
tive from the vessel to the wharf. 

This church was eighteen years old when, on Washington's 
birth-day, 1851, Cleveland's first railroad was opened, with 
great rejoicing, to the capital of the State. It is a remarkable 
fact that the census of 1850 shows that Columbus was the 
larger of the two cities, having a population of 17,882 to 
Cleveland's 17,600. The census of 1880 gave the two cities 
respectively 51,665 and 160,142. 

A few weeks since a great railroad of more than five 
hundred miles in length was opened through Cleveland, un- 
noticed except by a brief paragraph in the newspapers. In 
marked contrast to this was the three days celebration of the 
opening of the Columbus road in February, 1851. I quote 
from the newspapers of that period : 

"On the morning of Saturday, Feb. 21st, (1851) the State officers, the 
legislature, the councils of Cincinnati and Columbus, and others, in all four 
hundred and twenty-eight persons, left Columbus on the C. C. & C. cars on 
a visit to Cleveland, as its guests. 

" On their arrival they were greeted by the discharge of artillery and 
the welcome of thousands of our citizens. 

* * *■* * ■* * # * 

"On Sunday, Rev. Dr. Aiken, of the Stone Church, preached a sermon 
commemorative of the great event before Governor Wood and other dis- 
tinguished visitors. By a singular coincidence, Dr. Aiken preached at 
Utica, IS". Y., twenty-five years ago, a sermon before Governor Clinton and 
the State officials of New York on the occasion of the completion of the 
Erie Canal." 

Dr. Aiken's text on this occasion was strikingly appro- 
priate. It was the fourth verse of the second chapter of 
Nahum : "The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall 
jostle one against another in the broad ways : they shall 
seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings." Pos- 
sibly this was the only sermon ever preached from that text. 

We now have in this country one hundred and fifteen 
thousand miles of railroad. 

Perhaps you can grasp this tremendous fact better when 
you consider that this mileage is equivalent to one hundred 
and fifteen railroads from New York city to Chicago, or, 



42 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

thirty-five railroads from New York city, across the con- 
tinent, to San Francisco. 

The first day of May, 1844, (the church being then eleven 
years old) should be marked with a white stone in the an- 
nals of this world. On that day the Christian Morse achieved 
the victory of his life after years of struggle with penury, 
ridicule, and discouragement, by sending a dispatch from 
Baltimore to Washington, forty miles, announcing that the 
Whigs, then holding a National Convention in Baltimore, 
had nominated Henry Clay for President and Theodore Fre- 
linghuysen for Vice-President of the United States. 

About three hundred years ago the "myriad-minded" 
Shakespeare put these remarkable words into the mouth of 
that little imp of mischief, Puck : " I will put a girdle round 
about the globe in forty minutes." Now, one company, the 
Western Union, have enough wires in daily active use to 
put sixteen girdles "round about the globe," and we have, 
here in Cleveland, at noon every day, the quotation of stocks 
in London at 4 P.M.. of the same day; thus, apparently at 
least, reducing Puck's boast to a tame common-place remark. 
At the present rate of development of the telegraph and 
telephone, when the centennial history of this church shall 
be written, fifty years hence, this globe will be like a ball 
of yarn, a ball of wires. 

I have tried to keep at least within hailing distance of 
the rapid and remarkable developments of this century, but 
when a gentleman stepped into a drug store out at the Sta- 
tion the other day — where I happened to be — and going 
to the telephone, in the most .matter-of-fact way, asked the 
exchange to "please call up Akron," I felt discouraged, and 
wanted the world to stop a while and let me "catch up." 

This church was organized Feb. 16, 1833, fifty years ago. 
For three years it had no home, meetings being held at the 
Academy, now the Fire Department headquarters, on St. 
Clair street, and in the old court house, which stood in the 
park about where the rustic bridge is. The records show 
that the "splendid brick church" (it was a remarkably fine 
building for that period) was entered — the upper part Feb. 
26, 1836 ; the basement, Feb. 6, 1887. The structure still 



STATISTICAL HISTORY. 43 

stands, at the southeast corner of Seneca and Champlain, 
and is an excellent building yet after its forty-seven years 
of checkered history. That was the home of the church fo 
twenty years, when, in 1855, a golden opportunity occurred 
to secure this fine property of the Plymouth Church for 
$29,000. The purchase was made, and the old church pro- 
perty sold to Judge Bishop for $16,000. He bought it to 
help the church, and, I understand, suffered quite a loss 
as a result of the purchase. 

This property has cost, including the radical reconstruc- 
tion and beautifying done in 1880, about $50,000, and the 
land alone is worth fully that sum now. It may be said, 
in passing, that it was eminently fitting that the reconstruc- 
tion referred to should be accomplished under the able and 
gratuitous superintendence of that eminent architect and 
valued member of our congregation Levi Tucker Scofield. 

This church also owns the fine property at the corner 
of Prospect and Kennard streets,, on which stands the beau- 
tiful memorial Idaka chapel. This property has also cost, 
and is fully worth fifty thousand dollars. It was, almost 
wholly, a magnificent gift to us, as you are aware, by the 
large-hearted Stillman Witt and his equally noble-hearted 
and generous wife and children. 

The church thus owns, free from debt, property valued 
by conservative men at $100,000. 

The expenses of the church for the fifty years foot up 
$163,415. 

Not counting the three years when the church had no 
home and its expenses were very small, about $300 per year 
or $900 for the three years, the annual expense has ranged 
from an average of $1,200 in the old church to about 
$7,000 for several years past. 

In the matter of contributions for the spread of the gos- 
pel in this city, State, the nation, and in foreign lands, also 
for the cause of .education in theological seminaries of our 
Baptist denomination, and for lifting up and helping the 
wretched and helpless everywhere, this church has made a 
creditable record. With the efficient help given me by Bro. 
James M. Hoyt in ascertaining sums given by members of 



44 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

the church direct, of which we have no record, and the 
figures published in our Annual Associational Minutes, I have 
been able to ascertain definitely an aggregate of $260,000. 

How much more than that has been given it is impossi- 
ble to ascertain. As history should be confined to facts and 
known figures, no attempt to estimate these unknown con- 
tributions has been made. 

A recapitulation of the amounts I have stated gives a 
grand aggregate of $513,000 contributed by this church in 
fifty years for the upbuilding of Christ's kingdom ; about 
half of it at home and half abroad ; certainly a fair, per- 
haps an unselfish, division. Fully one-quarter of this large 
sum was contributed by the generous family to whom allusion 
has been made. 

I now close this history with the most important figures of 
the period under review. Compared with them all, the facts 
and figures given hitherto are but auxiliary and subordinate, 
like the supporting pillars of an arch to which the following 
statistics of the spiritual fruits of fifty years' effort by eleven 
pastors and a devoted and intelligent membership, are the key- 
stone. 

STATISTICS OF MEMBEKSHIR 

FIFTY YEA.RS. 

Constituent members, - - - - - - 17 

RECEIVED : 

By baptism, - - - - - - - 1,171 

" letter from other churches, - - - - 1,131 

" experience, - - - - - 98 



Total, - 2,417 

losses : 

By letter to other churches, - 

" death, - .... 

" excluded, less restored, 9 - 
" dropped from church roll, missing, - - 

Total, 

Present number members, .... 

Average number, fifty years, 




STATISTICAL HISTORY. 45 

Included in the number dismissed by letter (1,141) are 212 
members who have gone out in four colonies to organize other 
Baptist churches in this city. The keystone of the historical 
arch we have been building is the fact that the number received 
by baptism after satisfactory evidence of conversion — and we 
recognize no other — is equal to the present membership of the 
church (581) and another church of an equal number and the 
goodly fraction of 14 over for good measure. The church has 
won her trophies from the world and not from other churches ; 
having dismissed to other churches ten members more than she 
lias received from other churches. Although the church has 
been deprived of 'a pastor's care at different periods, amounting 
to five of her fifty years, not a single entire year has gone by 
without accessions by baptism. 

For forty-seven of the fifty years this church has not only 
been self-sustaining, but a reservoir of both members and 
money, from which aid has been drawn for the eight other 
Baptist churches of this city, and for scores of churches in all 
that vast region of territory between Lake Erie and the Pacific. 

Notwithstanding this steady drain, it is, in respect of num- 
ber of members, the largest Baptist church in Ohio. 

The present membership is the largest in the history of the 
church, and would be much larger nominally but for the elim- 
ination from the rolls of that nebulous element whose names 
clog the registers of all churches, but who never "materialize" 
elsewhere. The membership was never so definitely located as 
now. This accounts for the seemingly large number dropped as 
missing, after a vigorous search. With hearts full of gratitude 
to God, who alone "giveth the increase," we can say of the 
First Baptist Church of Cleveland what Daniel Webster said of 
Massachusetts, "the past, at least, is safe." 



DEACONS OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 

IN CLEVELAND, OHIO, 

FROM ITS CONSTITUTION, TO THE CLOSE OF A HALF CENTURY, 
FEBRUARY 16th, 1883. 



BY JAMES M. HOTT. 



Two institutions have supreme influence in human life — the 
Family and the Christian Church. Both are of divine ap- 
pointment. In the family, life begins, and is beloved, main- 
tained, molded and developed, until in due succession it is 
launched upon personal responsibility in the flow of the race. 
The Church, recruited from families, brings the life there 
blended into new relations, which, while ever in divinest har- 
mony with all vital germs in the family, will lift them to a 
higher plane of influence and activity, where the normal fruit 
is immortal life. I speak now of the Church, not as a denom- 
ination, but as a single body of believers. Thus the family and 
the Church stand related as germ, and flower, and fruit of all 
that is best, rarest, and loveliest in life here, and the earn- 
est of the perfected life beyond. 

The Church comprises pastor, deacons, and members. In 
commemorating our first half century, we have listened with 
lively interest to short histories of our successive pastorates, 
and to a summary of the results of our church life. It falls to 
my lot to bring now a tribute of loving memories of the deacons 
who have served us. It has been my happiness personally to 
have known them all. 

The entire number chosen during the fifty years is twenty- 
three. Of these, thirteen have departed this life. I will refer 
to them in the order of their appointment. For the first three 
years and nine months, Moses White and Benjamin Bouse 



THE PASTORATES. 47 

served as deacons. There is no written church record of their 
first election ; that record was in the hearts of the membership. 
That they were deacons ordained of grace through preeminent 
fitness, was self-evident. But when the little band increased, 
and were about to enter the new, and what then was deemed 
superb house of worship, on the corner of Seneca and Cham- 
plain streets, it seemed meet that a board of six deacons should 
be chosen, and, on November 19th, 1836, the choice fell upon 
Moses White, Benjamin Kouse, Alexander Seed, Jona- 
than Ames, William T. Smith and John Benney. 

Brother Smith, the youngest of the board, still survives, as 
our church not only, but our whole community, rejoice to 
know. In the vigorous and rich maturity of wisdom and graces 
most fit to adorn the office, he still acts as deacon, in which, 
and every other good work, he is beloved by Christians of 
every name. But then, in his youth, too diffident of his 
fitness to bear what he deemed so hallowed a name, Brother 
Smith could only be induced to act temporarily as deacon. His 
appointment, however, remained unaltered of record and in 
the hearts of the members. At length, deferring to the con- 
tinued wish of the church, he waived his scruples and entered 
upon the full duties of an office which he now honors us in 
bearing for life. 

Jonathan Ames, the fourth deacon of the board of 1836, 
lived on the West Side, and soon transferred his membership to 
the Ohio City Church, where he served as deacon until his re- 
moval to the West. He was a sturdy Christian man, honoring 
his calling as a blacksmith by a life of guileless integrity and 
industry. Many years have fled since his death. 

The remaining active deacons of the Board of 1836 were 
Moses White, Benjamin Kouse, Alexander Sked, and 
John Benney, all now departed. A group of marked men ; 
alike and yet unlike ; equal in love for the church, and loyalty 
to Christ ; but with traits and habits in such sharp contrast as 
vividly to fix in memory the personality of each. Deacon 
White, though his heart was instinct with the melodies of love, 
was but a silent participant in singing. Deacon Eouse was the 
very soul of song. I doubt not that he often sang in his 
dreams. He sang with a contagious enthusiasm which in- 



48 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

spired the multitude to sing, and his voice, just enough in 
the lead to be an ever sure reliance, drew all after it in sponta- 
neous harmony, as a locomotive with over-mastering strength 
draws the train. He loved old tunes hallowed by centuries 
of religious association ; and, often, while leading others, his 
sweet manly voice would parenthetically strike out in some 
high and clear old-time inflection and trill, to him natural as 
breath, but to ordinary singers unattainable as flight. 

Deacon Sked was no singer, but of a highly poetical tem- 
perament he had a faultless ear for rhythm ; and the charm of 
his Scotch accent, and nicely balanced utterance of some in- 
spiring psalm, or sublime prophecy from Holy Writ, will not 
die out of the memory of those who heard him. 

Deacon Benney was an Englishman, of steadfast consistency 
of temperament and habit. Reliable in all church relations 
and duties, and living upon a sustained plane of exemplary 
Christian influence, he was courteous, patient, and ever 
ready in the devout offering of prayer and praise in the meet- 
ings of the church. He had a sincere and manly voice, and 
persuasive emphasis. Uniformly appropriate in the matter 
spoken, his precise and accurate English enunciation was ac- 
companied by a seeming fullness of throat habitually present, 
but which, through love of the man, is remembered more as 
an interesting peculiarity than blemish. After many years res- 
idence here, he removed to a western State, where he entered 
the ministry, and labored as pastor and missionary until his 
death. 

Thus I have glanced at the group as they reappear in mem- 
ory. As to the first three, especially, I should wrong the 
church they served and blessed, did I not dwell with more 
of personal detail upon their characters and work. Within the 
time to which I must be limited, the reference they justly merit 
is precluded. I will attempt, however, brief details, confessing* 
at the outset that they will be all inadequate. 

As to Moses White, the last to leave us, who is vividly re- 
membered by even the younger members of our church, it is 
less requisite to speak now at length, especially as it was my 
privilege in October 1881, to present here, in a memorial 
address, quite full reference to his life and influence. He 



THE DEACONS. 49 

was born in Warwick, Massachusetts, February 25th, 1791. 
When very young, the death of his mother led to his transfer 
to the home in Mendon, of his maternal grandfather. At fif- 
teen he was apprenticed in Boston to John Wilson, a merchant 
tailor. Haying learned the trade, and become of age, he re- 
moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where he first saw Miss 
Mary Andrews, who, September 3d, 1817, became his wife. 
On February 25th, 1816, he was baptized by Rev. Butler, at 
Holland Patent, New York. There being no Baptist church 
in Cleveland, he united with the church in Euclid, where he 
remained a member until this church was constituted, when he 
came here and continued as member and deacon of this church 
until his death, September 1st, 1881. 

The population in Cleveland in 1816 was about 150. Deacon 
White found but two professing Christians then here, namely, 
Judge Daniel Kelley, and Mrs. Noble H. Merwin. The destitu- 
tion of religious privileges was so great that he hesitated about 
bringing his intended wife to "this heathen land," as he was 
constrained to call it; but Judge Kelley and Mrs. Merwin unit- 
ing in their earnest advice that he should return after marriage 
with his Christian wife, and strive by prayerful and godly living 
to rescue the town from the ascendency of unchristian influ- 
ences, he concluded that the path of duty was to witness for 
Christ in Cleveland. 

During the years following, in connection with Judge Kel- 
ley and Mrs. Merwin until their decease, he was instant in se- 
curing the preaching of the Gospel whenever a stranger minister 
visited the place ; making preparation for such service in the 
court-house, and giving public notice of the same. 

With the growth of the town the influence of Christians 
coming here to live began to be felt, and the Trinity Episcopal 
Church was constituted in 1816, the First Presbyterian in 1824, 
the First Methodist in 1827, and our own church in 1833. 
From this time till death, a period of more than forty-eight 
years, he served our church as deacon. He never shirked duty. 
The sick, the poor, the halting, and the wandering could wit- 
ness by many hundreds, were they here, to his loving tenderness 
and wise fidelity. 

Forgetful of self, except only, when in his vivid view of an 

D 



50 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

ideal Christian walk, he remembered self in humble and oft- 
repeated self-accusations, he was prodigal of time and labor 
for others in every service by which he could promote their wel- 
fare. Near the first of June, 1858, he met a great bereavement 
in the death of his wife, who was blended with every joy and 
hope. Thenceforth bereft of her love, her never-faltering sym- 
pathy and wise counsel, in his felt loneliness, repeating his char- 
acteristic saying, that " true submission to the will of God is 
the essence of Christianity," he left the wonted hearth-stone 
and crossed the threshold of a home so endeared and adorned 
by the departed, and with a wounded heart, but with cheerful 
and manly Christian courage, he entered the new home to which 
he was welcomed by children and grandchildren. There, as we 
all know so well, with his son-in-law, the generous, the ever 
true and tender, the loving and ever lovable, the noble, wise, 
and ever to be honored, but now so deeply lamented, Judge J. 
P. Bishop, with the beloved and now widowed Mrs. Bishop, 
who is still spared to the church, aided by the assiduous affec- 
tion of his other children, the remaining twenty-three years of 
his earthly life were an uninterrupted course of blessings ac- 
cepted by him, and in turn of blessings imparted by him in 
fullest volume. So, the tenderly-revered Father "White; the 
sunny-hearted G-randpa White, blossoming in old age amid 
prattling children with a heart-bloom as sweet and joyous as 
any in the youngest breast; the beloved and honored Deacon 
White, was alike the pride and crown of a Christian household 
unsurpassed in their tireless love. 

When about eighty-four his failing eyesight resulted in 
blindness. He had dreaded the coming of this dark cloud, and 
when sight was at last quenched, his brave heart for once fal- 
tered, and broken down in utter helplessness, the strong man 
who so long had served others, wept bitter tears, exclaiming, 
" Oh ! how can I endure to be a blind old man, in everybody's 
way !" But soon, with the long earthly sunset, there arose in 
his heart the radiance of patient and perfect peace, and from 
that moment he gloried in an infirmity which, as he said, 
eclipsed the world's allurements, and gave him the luxury of 
heart communings with God, and the treasures of his wonder- 
ful Word. 



THE DEACONS. 51 

I met him one beautiful morning upon the sidewalk, as, 
tracing the fence with his cane around the familiar corner of 
the home, he was enjoying the air and warmth; and, on speak- 
ing to him, he recognized my voice, and welcomed me; and in 
our conversation, as he stood eagerly uttering his crowding 
thoughts when a loving friend was near, he tottered toward me, 
and taking my hand, said, "They sometimes tell me that my 
sight would be restored by an operation. But my Heavenly 
Father has deemed it wise to put out the light for a few days; 
and I should tremble for my poor weak heart should I interfere 
with His all-wise and gracious plan; and I find it an unfailing- 
luxury to be shut up to His Word. I get such views of that 
})erfect and wonderful Man, that mighty Saviour, that Divine 
Teacher, I can never know enough of Him." 

Deacon White gave convincing evidence of the genuineness 
-of his health of soul, in the fact that the weight of years, in- 
firmity, and weakness, instead of souring his nature, sweetened 
his heart, and softened and made richer all his susceptibilities 
to love, truth, and rightness of character. 

He was no carping pessimist, denouncing all goodness, and 
caviling at the imperfections and mal-adjustments of the world 
and of events; but he was a docile and joyously adoring wor- 
shiper of God in creation, in Providence, and above all, in the 
revelation of his personal life and gracious love in Christ. 

We now draw near the closing scene. At the time appointed 
for the end, his remarkable vitality suddenly gave way, and it 
was evident that he would soon depart. He longed, but with 
meek patience, for his release. He was more than ready, he 
was eager to go. The last day was passed in animated converse 
with children and near friends, as far as his waning strength 
allowed. His delight was to listen with rapt attention to Scrip- 
ture promises. His daughter, Mrs. Bishop, tenderly minister- 
ing to him, read from Isaiah, "For the Lord shall be thy ever- 
lasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." 
His daughter Annie, sitting near him, saw, as these words were 
uttered, the wan face illumined by a glow of glad animation. 
Some hours after Mrs. Adams repeated from Isaiah, "And I 
will bring the blind by a way they know not, and I will lead 
them in paths they have not known; I will make darkness light 



52 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 

before them, and crooked things straight . These things will I 
do unto them, and not forsake them." Half rising in bed as 
he heard these words, his whole frame quivered with glad emo- 
tion, as though an assurance direct from heaven had rejoiced 
his soul. With many loving looks and brief words, uttered 
sometimes with all his accustomed emphasis, his life peacefully 
ebbed from human view, until in the evening, without a strug- 
gle, all that was mortal was at rest, and the immortal spirit re- 
turned to God who gave it. 

Deacon Benjamin Kouse was born in Boston, on the 23d 
of March, 1795. When six years old the death of both parents 
left him doubly orphaned. He had a temporary home with an 
aunt, and afterward with his maternal grandmother. At about 
fourteen he was apprenticed to Peter Osgood, of Boston, to 
learn the trade of a mason. He had little schooling, and even 
less religious instruction. He often heard, however, the preach- 
ing of his employer's pastor, Dr. Sharp, of the Baptist church. 
In the war of 1812 he was drafted as a soldier. Shocked by the 
profanity and wickedness with which he was brought in contact 
in the army, he resolved, on his discharge, to give earnest per- 
sonal attention to his own religious interests, and after vivid 
heart-searchings and prayer, he found peace in the Saviour, 
and on November 14th, 1814, was baptized by Bev. Daniel 
Sharp, in Boston. In August, 1821, he was married to Miss 
Kebecca E. Cromwell, who still survives, as we all know, the 
joy and crown of our membership, preeminently loving and be- 
loved; a mother in Israel, whose works of blessing and Christian 
charity, with their fruits, abound on every hand . 

Three years after his marriage, Deacon House removed to 
New York city, and there became successful as a builder. He 
united with the Delancey Street Church, where he was chosen 
deacon ; was subsequently superintendent of a large mission 
Sunday school. While prominent in these labors, the Board of 
the American Sunday School Union urged him to accept an 
appointment as their agent at Cleveland, to open a depository, 
and organize Sunday schools in the western region, at a salary 
of $500 a year. After earnest and prayerful consideration, with 
his wife, they concluded that the call was of God, and with 
prompt decision, and at a pecuniary sacrifice, they sold their 



THE DEACONS. 53 

property in New York, and on the 17th of October, 1830, 
reached Cleveland, then a village of 1,075 inhabitants. There 
was then but one church-building here — the Trinity Epis- 
copal — and the prevalent influence was infidel. Describing in 
his diary his impressions as to the work upon which he had 
entered, he wrote : 

" Deplorable darkness pervades this part of the country. My mind has 
been depressed this day on account of the stupendous work that is to be 
done in this town, and others around me . It seems impossible that I, so 
unworthy, so incompetent, should ever be able to effect anything. I am 
persuaded that it will be only the mighty energy of the Holy Spirit that 
will accomplish anything in this place." 

He opened his depository, and entered upon his work. He 
caused the Presbyterian Sunday school to be revived ; an Epis- 
copal Sunday school to be reorganized ; a Tract Society and 
Seamen's Eriend Society to be formed, " in hope," as he said in 
his diary, " that by the blessing of God they might create a re- 
ligious interest which this town never possessed." In another 
place he writes: 

" I hope God will enable me to discharge my duty faithfully in warning 
the unconverted, * * * inviting the inquirer to the Lamb of God 
who taketh away the sin of the world. * * * My own heart is 
sometimes ready to faint, * * * but if I have the light of God's 
countenance, His holy presence, the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, and fee . 
Christ to be all in all, all the work will be delightful." 

About this time an incident occurred in the nature of a per- 
sonal temptation 3 of which Deacon Bouse told me many years 
after, to which I will now refer, giving as nearly as I can his 
own vivid recital. Perhaps the last association which he at- 
tended, near the close of life, was held with the church at Se- 
ville. It was my happiness to ride with him in the cars on our 
return. He dwelt much in our conversation upon old times ; 
and seeing that I was interested, he said : "I will tell you of 
one of the sharpest spiritual conflicts I ever had. Shortly after 
coming to Cleveland, I had just settled my little family in a 
house. I bought a horse and buggy; and, one fine summer 
morning, I took a quantity of Sunday school books and tracts 



54 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

and started for Lorain county to organize Sunday schools. I 
had crossed the Cuyahoga, and was well on my way to Rockv 
River, when, suddenly, just as though some one spoke to me, I 
seemed to hear said, ' Well, Benjamin Rouse, you are a pretty 
fellow ! You, a strong man in the prime of life, with a fine 
young family, giving up a great business in New York, selling* 
your property for little or nothing, and coming into this wil- 
derness with a horse and buggy peddling tracts and Sunday 
school books in the woods. A pretty fellow, indeed, Benjamin 
Rouse !' Quick as thought," said he, "I stopped my horse, 
and turning round as if some one was there, I said aloud, ■ Sa- 
tan, begone ! Didn't Rebecca and I pray about this all one 
night ? and didn't the Lord tell us to come here ? and arn't I 
here because G-od sent me ? Yes, He did send me, and I shall 
hold on in my work, and trust Him to the end; and now begone, 
you tempter ! Then," said he, "the fierce trial passed forever, 
and I went on my way rejoicing. I founded several Sunday 
schools in the young settlements, returned to Cleveland, and a 
few days after, the Lord opened to me an opportunity to buy 
my corner lot on the Square and Superior street, for $1,200, 
and I see tlie Lord's hand in ordering my whole life." As one 
fruit of a life so nobly consecrated, he was the means of organ- 
izing more than two hundred Sunday schools. 

After a painful illness, Deacon Rouse died in July, 1871. 
Near the close, he bade all farewell, and uttering the words, 
"Joy, peace, rest," he sank into unconsciousness. Afterward 
his wife, as she tenderly nursed him, aroused him to half con- 
sciousness, and, saying, " I am now going to rest, and long to 
go," he soon died. 

One of my earliest memories of Deacon and Mrs. Rouse was 
about 1837, one cloudy afternoon, when I was on some business 
errand as a young lawyer, and passing up the side hill on Mich- 
igan street, I saw a short distance before me, near the brow of 
the hill, Deacon Rouse, with his horse and buggy, stop, tie his 
horse, and then carefully wrapping Mrs. Rouse in a large shawl, 
he lifted her from the buggy and carried her in his arms into 
the dwelling of a poor family. I knew they were on an errand 
of mercy; and when I saw that faithful man lifting his wife,, 
too feeble from illness to walk, but resolute of soul for every 



THE DEACONS. 55 

ministry to the suffering poor, my heart was made to glow with 
admiration and love for them both, which then made a deep 
impression, that, I am happy to say, abides with me still. 

Benjamin Bouse was one of nature's noblemen. Sunny- 
hearted, of a quick, vigorous mind, full of manly decision, of 
rich susceptibilities, easily kindled to enthusiasm, with marked 
ability to inspire others with his own zeal. 

" And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." 

I well remember, when engrossed myself in the duties of a 
laborious profession, that Deacon Rouse and Deacon White 
seemed to me through all those now distant years, to have been 
ever intent upon the business of the church and of the Master. 
When Deacon Rouse and wife, in obedience to the Master's 
call, left home and business upon a mission to a distant land, it 
was a beautiful Providence that provision so ample for the be- 
loved mother in the sunset of life, and for her children after 
her, should have been supplied directly in the path of their fidel- 
ity to G-od. The church they have blessed, have their gratitude 
enhanced by the remembrance of the services in public praise 
and worship, for twent}^-nine years generously and joyously 
given by a son, the beloved Edwin 0. Rouse, now departed, 
whose memory will be ever cherished, and who, through all 
those years, was assisted in the choir by his wife, still a highly 
valued member of the church. It is also a descent of gifts and 
graces beautiful to see, that a surviving son, with much of his 
father's richly zealous temperament, now bears the father's hal- 
lowed office : and that a surviving daughter is now walking 
with a usefulness so manifold, in the mother's lovely and noble 
ways. 

Alexander Sked was born in East Lowden, Scotland, 
December 5th, 1780. In the records of an adjoining town 
there is a quaint entry as to the birth and christening of this 
man-child. " Innerwich, December 9th, 1780, John Sked, 
gardner, at Thruston, and Jean Gray, his spouse, had a lawful 
son born December 5th, and baptized December 9th, named 
Alexander. Witnesses, James Sheldon, hind, at Thruston, and 
John Hercus, smith, at Show." 



56 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 

When twenty years old he went to Northamptonshire, Eng- 
land, where he was married at thirty years of age. He came to 
America in 1831, lived fonr years in New York city, and re- 
moved to Cleveland in 1835. 

Deacon Sked was a florist. Every unfolding bud and every 
flower was to him a symbol and offspring of the One Source of 
all life and beauty. To him, his green-house was a tabernacle 
of praise, fragrant with the incense of devout remembrance of 
the Eternal Author. To him, the world was irradiated by the 
omnipresence of its Maker ; and Providence was the unfolding 
of the needed and gracious nurture and discipline of all seek- 
ers after G-od. His head and heart were saturated with the 
rhythmic poetry and praise, the confessions and supplications, 
of the Psalms. He fairly revelled in the Old Testament. The 
lessons of his passing days were dignified and hallowed by the 
application to his present life of the luminous experiences 
of prophets inspired of G-od. Did some softly falling summer 
rain revive all nature ? the prayer meeting would feel the grate- 
ful influence, as, rising in his wonted place, his face radiant, 
his venerable form, bent with age, slowly weaving to and fro, 
his hands extended in front of his breast, with the tips of his 
fingers gently touching, he sketched in vivid word-painting, 
pictures of that exhaustless beneficence, which, with the clouds 
as chariots, dropping fatness upon the hills and valleys of the 
world, made glad all living creatures. Did a summer drouth 
prevail ? he would speak of the shrunken flower with drooping 
head, a mute symbol of dependence ; and, saying in his quaint 
Scotch way, that it was " reely greevin" he would enforce the 
lesson of the uncertainty of earthly plans and labors ; but that, 
in the believer's view, forever beyond, 

" Sweet fields stand dressed in living green." 

In 1851 he went out with the band which left our church to 
form the then Second Baptist, in which he was a deacon till his 
death, in May, 1868, when nearly eighty-eight. A few days be- 
fore he died he sent for me to see him. I found him greatly 
prostrated, and quite unable, from the weakness of extreme old 
age, to lift his head from the pillow ; but his mind was clear, 



THE DEACONS. 57 

alert, devout, and fertile as ever. "I cannot last long," he 
said, " I have no transports, but I can say with Fuller, I have a 
good hope in Christ. It is about sixty years since I was bap- 
tized. I remember that, then a young man, the minister, when 
he gave me the. hand of fellowship in the church, did it invok- 
ing the Divine blessing which he assured me would follow the 
believer. So I have found it. With much imperfection, I 
have to praise the Divine goodness. I have had much suffer- 
ing in this sickness, but some seasons of great enjoyment. 

' ' And now I'm to die, 
Receive me, I'll cry, 
For Jesus hath loved me, 
I cannot tell why. 

"But this He assures me, 
That we are so joined, 
He'll not be in glory, 
And leave me behind." 

"I want you," he said to me, "to speak at my funeral. We 
have known each other over thirty years. I give to you my 
blessing ; and to your wife, and to your son in the ministry. 
I have lived in a wonderful time. When I came to this coun- 
try, thirty-seven years ago, the captain of the ship said to me 
that this country would not long survive the throngs of immi- 
grants rushing into it. But with much that is evil, I have 

.seen a steady growth in the great principles of truth. I trust 
in G-od for a greater future in this land. Has there been 
any thing new to-day, as to the impeachment ? " (It was in 
1868, when the President, Andrew Johnson, was under trial 
before the U. S. Senate.) "They have given him" he said, 
" a patient hearing, and a fair trial. I have lived among 
flowers. I trust my life has done no ill to the city. I think 
the love of outward beauty is healthful ; but that is nothing 

to moral beauty. Oh ! that is in Christ the altogether lovely. 

I know in whom I have believed., and that He is able to keep 

that which I have committed unto Him." 

Tenderly nursed by his faithful daughters, he lingered a 

few days after this interview, the memory of which I count 

among the benedictions of my life. 



58 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

Once lie said as if musing : "I see angels round me."" 
At length, near midnight, when his beloved and ever-faithful 
eldest daughter was watching at his bedside, she saw his lips 
moving, and bending over him to catch the whispered words, 
he said: "Jane! Jane! Jordan's very deep, but it's got a 
good bottom. I shall get over." Not long after, she heard 
him exclaim, as if speaking to some one in the distance: 
" Come ! come ! come ! ! " and the spirit took its heavenward 
flight. 

The Sabbath afternoon following, the Second Baptist 
Church was crowded — galleries and aisles all full, and many 
standing in the vestibule — of Christians and citizens of ev- 
ery name and calling, all blended in their desire to testify 
their unfeigned regard for a veteran Christian whom the whole 
city loved and honored. The hallowed remains, borne by 
deacons from three churches — some of them from other de- 
nominations — were laid away to rest, wreathed with ever- 
greens, and the fragrant flowers of May. 

I may not leave this group of veteran servatns of the Sa- 
viour, without a parting glance, as, seated in the prayer meet- 
ing, they re-appear in old-time memory. Deacon White, the 
doubting Thomas, but ever ready, in view of some Divine 
ideal, to exclaim with impassioned emphasis, " My Lord ! and 
my G-od ! " Deacon Rouse, the impetuous Peter — daring and 
fertile in zeal and enterprise. Deacon Sked, the serene, ten- 
der, and thoughtful John. I hear the first, exhorting to 
Christian consecration, but deploring his own short-comings ; 
doubting, even, if he had been chosen of God. The second, 
gently chiding such want of complete assurance, and glorying 
in immeasurable grace ; and the third, with clearest insight, 
and deepest sympathy with both moods, would devoutly rise 
and pour out his soul in lofty praise for an almighty Saviour, 
and, to crown all, would call on Deacon Eouse to sing "The 
good old way," when, instantly, with the ringing melody and 
grace of a singing bird, buoyant on wing, the inspiring voice 
would lift us in praise into the high noon and warmth of a- 
shining and present Sun of Righteousness, as we sang : 



THE DEACONS. 59 

' ' Lift up your hearts, Immanuel's friends, 
And taste the pleasure Jesus sends ; 
Let nothing cause you to delay, 
But hasten on the good old way. 

"Oh! good old way! how good it is 
To dwell where loving Jesus is ; 
A life of love, a heaven below, 
I have no doubt you'll find it so." 

On the 23d of November, 1837, Sylvesteb Ranney and 
John Seaman were elected deacons. They were Christians of 
no common type. Blameless in their walk, they illustrated 
literally the inspired description of pure and undefiled religion. 
Vigilant, active, and beneficent in all requisite to maintain and 
promote the welfare of the church, they were known by deeds, 
not words. Punctual in all public and private church appoint- 
ments, they were habitually silent participants. None valued 
more than they the communion of saints. Never inattentive, 
never indifferent, evincing alway a lively interest in growth 
and fruit in Christian life, they had in church assemblies no 
speech, no language ; but ever with them as with the orbs 
of light whose voice is not heard, but which by perfect har- 
mony in their appointed orbits fill the heavens with melody, so 
they Avere known and felt as vital workers in the spheres of 
Christian movement, by their rhythmic harmony of life. Each, 
years since, has been called to the life immortal; beloved, la- 
mented, yet still living in a radiant example. 

On the 19th of November, 1839, Abijah Wheelek and 
Alvin Conger were elected deacons. Deacon Wheeler was 
born in Salem, New Hampshire, in August, 1782, and died in 
Cleveland in February, 1865. He came to Cleveland in 1839. 
He was baptized by Rev. Benjamin Hill in Troy, New York, in 
1831. Deacon Wheeler is vividly remembered for his courteous 
and cordial sympathy with all our membership. He had natu- 
rally an imposing mien, and unostentatious, yet graceful, and 
even courtly dignity of manner, and was ever winning as a 
Christian gentleman. He was active, and interesting in parti- 
cipating in church services. Often kindled by the enthusiasjri 
of the veteran deacons, with whom he was ever in lively sym- 



60 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

pathy, he would glow with a contagious warmth of feeling ; 
and, in his references to the joy and value of the Christian 
life, he was wont to close with the oft-repeated, yet always ani- 
mating expression, " Oh ! it is beautiful !" 

Deacon Conger was a young man, of a refined and sympa- 
thizing temperament, full of persuasive Christian fervor, of 
beautiful symmetry of life, universally beloved for his work's 
sake, and a model in fidelity to every duty. His influence in 
the prayer meeting was ever spiritually quickening. An unas- 
suming air of docile and loving trust in Christ seemed ever to 
surround him. His term of service with us was brief, as in 
1842 he removed to Elyria ; was at once chosen a deacon of the 
church there ; bat soon, through an early death, he entered 
upon the life everlasting. It was said of his last hours on 
earth, that, " Never was the true courage of a Christian better 
exemplified than in his death." 

In May, 1844, Hanford Conger, the father of the foregoing, 
came to Cleveland, and, soon after, was elected deacon. He 
died in 1875, at the age of eighty-eight. He came from west- 
ern New York, where he was a pioneer. He was a soldier in 
the war of 1812. During our late civil war, when in the ripe 
maturity of a veteran in wisdom, he was full of courage as to 
the issue of the dreadful conflict ; and, after the Bull Eun dis- 
aster, he said to a friend, "God reigns. Don't despair! This 
generation knows nothing of the art of war ; but, they are 
quick to learn; we shall conquer; for God will protect the 
right." Deacon Conger was a farmer. He was a modest, true, 
and exemplary Christian. Steadfast in the faith, he was high- 
ly esteemed and beloved by all, and was eminently a lover of 
good men. Living with his daughter and son-in-law, he re- 
moved to the "West Side, where he served as deacon till his 
death, which was serene and peaceful. 

On the 2d of February, 1846, Alphonzo Holly was elected 
deacon. He was born in Cleveland April 3d, 1800, and died 
July 25th, 1875. He was a farmer, and widely known as one 
of the veteran citizens of Northern Ohio. Deacon Holly was a 
sedate and unassuming man, of few words, but of sincere and 
remarkable equanimity of temperament. Firmly grounded in 
his convictions, he was wise in counsel, and steadfast in the 



THE DEACONS. 



61 



discharge of duty, and stood in high repute for his stainless in- 
tegrity. His last sickness was protracted and painful ; but his 
meek patience, his cheerful spirit, and his unfaltering trust in 
his Maker and Eedeemer made a deep and most salutary im- 
pression. 

On January 5th, 1852, Dr. Lewis M. Dodge was elected 
deacon. His term of service was brief, and terminated on his 
removal to Buffalo. 

On the 21st of February, 1853, John Case was elected dea- 
con. He was a highly valued man, of signal worth, sterling- 
ability, and was warmly welcomed to the church and to the 
office. But his sudden death soon after he was chosen was de- 
plored by all. 

On the 18th of July, 1855, Henry K. Eaynolds was elect- 
ed deacon. He entered upon the office when quite a young 
man ; but during all the years of his service until December, 
1878, when he removed to New York, he was a model in the 
faithful fulfillment of every Christian trust. Passing through 
trying business vicissitudes, he emerged from disappointing re- 
verses without a stain upon his integrity. Serenity of faith, 
assiduity in duty, and a manly willingness 

"To labor, and to wait," 

were unwavering characteristics. He is now an active member 
of a church in New Jersey, honoring the Master by a godly 
walk. 

On the 22d of April, 1858, "William E. Clarke was elect- 
ed deacon. It was cause to him of grateful joy that within a 
few weeks after his entrance upon office, he assisted in the bap- 
tism of three of his children at one time. Deacon Clarke was 
born in Providence, Ehode Island, July 31st, 1802. He came 
to Cleveland in 1854. In 1860 he moved to Trumbull county, 
and thence to Conneaut, where he died in 1865. He was bap- 
tized by Dr. Wm. Hague in 1836. He was a veteran servant of 
Christ, ever wise and constant. Just before his death, his last 
words were 

"Jesus, lover of my soul, 
Let me to thy bosom fly." 



(52 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

On the 6th of July, 1866, the church elected Benjamin F. 
House and Charles Gr. King deacons. On the 15th of Octo- 
ber, 1875, E. P. Myers, John William Taylor, and James 
Rabon were elected deacons ; and on the 7th of April, 1882, 
A. T. Stout and Charles A. Smith were elected deacons. 
The seven last named, in connection with William T. Smith, 
now constitute the present board of eight deacons, all in active 
service. In wisdom, in ripe experience, in tried excellence, in 
rich variety yet harmony of gifts and graces, as a fitting crown 
of the first half century, they are the joy and pride of the 
First Baptist Church. Thank Cod ! we have deacons left to us 
whom all love, and whom the young now may revere and imi- 
tate, as our older members did those of the olden time. 

In review of our first half century, the departed years are 
seen to be populous with yet living memories. Groups of those 
known, honored, loved, but now departed, working with the 
deacons in wise and fruitful service, are seen in clear relief. 
Did time allow, our hearts would prompt us to repeat the treas- 
ured names, not only for the joy of a fresh remembrance of our 
love, but to present them to those following as shining exam- 
ples of noble Christian manhood. 

I have briefly named that tireless worker, Jesse P. Bishop, 
who was early with, and ever of the foremost of the founders 
of our church growth and welfare. Would that we could 
dwell at length upon his work, and worth, and memory. They 
will not be forgotten. 

The labor of retrospect assigned to me, which I have found 
most grateful, would be ill done, did I fail in closing, to recall 
beside, two other workers, who were strong pillars in support of 
our church life : the noble, and ever to be honored Stillman 
Witt, and Truman Dunham. I have time only to name 
them; they need but to be named, and our hearts will glow 
afresh with admiring love . 



THE WOMEN OF THE CHURCH. 



BY MRS. S. W. ADAMS. 



The position of woman in the Chnrch of Christ is beauti- 
fully analagous to that which is hers in the home. She presses 
nearer to the Holy of Holies than man, and by her very organ- 
ization and environment is more receptive than he to the bless- 
ed influences of the promised Spirit. Penetrated and energized 
by these, her observant eye, her ready wit, her willing hand 
and loving heart, all fit her in numberless ways to aid in mak- 
ing the church a true home of the soul, the type and pattern of 
the perfect temple above. 

We read in the ancient records that women spun with 
their hands cloth of blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen 
for the house of God, and that they gave even their jewels for 
its service. Their children were early brought within its por- 
tals and dedicated to the Lord. We remember Miriam, who 
with her timbrel and her gift of song lifted the mighty host of 
Israel to a lofty pitch of grateful devotion. 

In the newer dispensation women ministered to our Lord. 
They stood by his cross to the last, and when the Mighty Con- 
queror arose from, the dead, it was a woman, alert and watch- 
ing, who was sent to quicken the steps of the slower disciples 
with the glad message, " He is risen." 

We read farther on that women were members of the primi- 
tive church, that their voices were heard mingling with those 
of husbands and brethren in prayer and praise. They labored 
with the great apostle, and we doubt not they gladly aided in 
the primal Home and Foreign Mission movements by soliciting 
funds "for the poor saints in Jerusalem," and "for sending 
the gospel to the regions beyond." 



64 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

The women who shared in the planting and growth of this 
branch of the church were after the Bible sort. They believed 
in the church because they believed in God, and they could say 
with sincerity, 

"I love thy kingdom, Lord, 
The house of thine abode, 
The Church our blest Kedeemer saved 
With His own precious blood. 

For her my tears shall fall, 

For her my prayers ascend, 
To her my cares and toils be given, 

Till toils and cares shall end." 

Some of these whom we shall mention were women of great 
talents, and all are worthy of tender and grateful remembrance 
as we review what they have done for this later generation in 
transmitting to us a heritage of orderly and beautiful service. 
We have already heard the names of those who were constitu- 
ent members of the church, but three of whom are now living, 
Mrs. Eebecca E. Eouse, Mrs. Harriet Malvin and Mrs. Harriet 
P. Hickox. 

At a meeting of the women of the little church on January 
2d, 1834, Mrs. Eebecca Eouse being chairman, and Mrs. J. L. 
Eichmond, secretary, the Cleveland Female Baptist Sewing So- 
ciety was formed, its declared object being "to promote the 
good of our fellow creatures, and thus ultimately advance the 
glory of G-od." The sixth article of its constitution reads 
thus: "All trifling and unprofitable conversation shall be dis- 
pensed with, and an individual, when practicable, shall be em- 
ployed in reading some useful book or publication, such as the 
directors may approve. Every meeting shall be opened and 
closed with prayer." The officers of the society were as fol- 
lows : Mrs. Eebecca E. Eouse, president ; Mrs. Julia A. M. 
Eichmond, secretary ; Clarinda Wheaton, treasurer. 

The membership fee was twenty-five cents. Among the 
names of members we find Mrs. Mary Coon Scofield, Mrs Leon- 
ard Case, Mrs. Moses White, Mrs. Thankful Abbey, Mrs. Mi- 
nerva Eanney, Mrs. Cleora Seaman, and Mrs. Lorain Fuller. 

By the end of the year other names were added — among 



THE WOMEN OF THE CHURCH. 65 

them, Miss Sked, Sabrina Hills, Losina Eanney. These ladies 
met every week at private houses, more often at the house of 
Mrs. Rouse than any other. Deacon Eouse was then living 
in a small house west of the Public Square, where the Eouse 
Block now stands. Very few buildings were then standing- 
near it. 

We have an old weekly record that gives a full account of 
the doings of the society. They made articles of clothing 
and bound shoes for Eanney & Seaman, while every meeting 
was opened and closed with prayer. 

January 2d, 1835, they reported an increased membership, 
and $24.06 in the treasury. 

At the next annual meeting, in 1836, the year's contribu- 
tions amounted to $43.92. The money seems to have been de- 
voted to church expenses and home missions. The Rev. 
Messrs. Hovey, Mack, Freeman, Ware, Dimick and Messeldine, 
who were missionaries in adjacent towns were the recipients of 
a part of the funds. 

Mrs. Tucker, the wife of the pastor, was a woman of noble 
character, a true helper of her husband, and a wise worker in 
the church. She resided here fron 1836 to 1842. Mrs. Weeden, 
Mrs. Gardener, Mrs. Wm. Chard, Mrs. Conger, Mrs. Nicker- 
son, and Mrs. Stockwell, are remembered as earnest, prayerful 
workers in the early days. Mrs. L. M. Griffiths, the mother of 
Mrs. Fish, was one of the earliest members of the church. 
She, with others of these women, loved to attend the sun-rise 
prayer-meetings held in the old Academy. She was devoted to 
the interests of the house of God until her death, which oc- 
curred in 1864. 

Mrs. Mary White, the wife of the beloved Deacon White, 
was a quiet but efficient worker. Her love for Christ was 
shown more by deeds than words. She died in 1858. Her 
name, also that of Mrs. Harriet E. Stevens, (mother of Mr. 
George B. Stevens,) Mrs. Wolsey, Mrs. Spangler, Mrs.Eedhead, 
— all these we tenderly cherish. Mrs. Stevens died in 1860. 

We remember their faces, which bore the beautiful impress 
of the spirit within. We remember their prayers, as they knelt 
in the old-fashioned Female Prayer Meeting. Many of you 
will recall dear Mother Wolsey, as she arose in the covenant 



66 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

meeting, and with trembling voice, said : ' i I do know that I 
love my Saviour." Mrs. Halliday, Mrs. Brayton, Mrs. Morgan 
(mother of Mrs. Swain and Oapt. Drake,) Mrs. Cowan, Mrs. 
Jerry Goon and Mrs. Clementina Gayton — we remember them 
all with love. They were women full of good works, but all 
unconscious of their own merits. 

The Maternal Meeting was organized in 1840, and was held 
every month for fifteen years. Many here who are now men 
and women, will remember being led to this meeting by their 
mothers, to be taught in the Scriptures and made the subjects 
of special prayer. 

It may be said here, that a woman's weekly prayer meeting 
has been maintained in this church for fifty years, always with 
profit, and often with the signal blessing of God. 

Several women who had united with this church, after a few 
years became members of the Second Church on Erie street, 
now the Euclid Avenue Church, viz. : Mrs. Sked, wife of the 
beloved Deacon Sked, her daughters, Mrs. Deacon Wheeler, 
Mrs. Farrar, Mrs. Church, Mrs. Chamberlain, Mrs. Perly Abby, 
and Miss Julia Wheeler, all of whom were beloved helpers in 
the early days. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Dean was a woman of lovely Christian char- 
acter, and her early death, forty years ago, was a great loss to 
the church. 

Mrs. Caroline Dean became a member of the church thir- 
ty-eight years ago, and served with the church for more than 
twenty years. She died in Upper Alton, 111., in 1876. Active 
in temperament, and kind in heart, she exercised great hospital- 
ity in her home. None were more ready than she to entertain 
strangers and to keep alive the social element in the church. 
She was always ready to aid her pastor in visiting the church 
members, and inviting them to her home. We can hardly esti- 
mate the power of this grace of hospitality on the character of 
this church, and we well may ask if it is not likely to become 
a lost virtue in the present social system. In this connection 
let it be said that during the years of which we are now speak- 
ing, the social gatherings of the church were held in private 
houses, as parlors and cook-stoves had not become features of 
domestic church service. The smaller dwellings were often 



THE WOMEN OF THE CHURCH. 67 

packed with people. The pastor's house, one well remembers, 
was filled from parlor to kitchen on these occasions ; hut the 
advantage was clear — the people were brought near together. 

Cordelia Kendrick Adams is a name that many of you, even 
at this distance of time, will hear with moistened eyes. The 
daughter of Rev. Nathaniel Kendrick, one of the former presi- 
dents of Madison University, she was a woman of rare and cul- 
tivated intellect and large Christian heart. With a character 
early sanctified by affliction, she was well fitted to take her 
place as wife of the pastor in 1849. Three short years of de- 
voted service she gave to the cause of the Master here, and then 
at his bidding went up higher, saying, " it is well ; I can serve 
Him better there." 

Mrs. Plumy Clark, wife of Rev. Charles Clark, and daugh- 
ter of Deacon Wheeler, was a woman of kindred spirit. The 
beloved friend of Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Clark preceded her friend 
by a short interval to the home above. " They were lovely and 
pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided." 

Miss Mary Brayton and. Miss Mary Dean were associated for 
many years in the care of the primary department of the Sun- 
day school, almost up to the year of Miss Brayton's death in 
1859. Both of these ladies did much for the church and Sun- 
day school, and were beloved by all who knew them. Miss 
Dean now resides in Painesville. Miss Brayton possessed a cul- 
tivated mind and bore herself with true dignity and courtesy 
of manner. Herself the embodiment of all that was good, she 
had that large charity which made her ever tolerant of the 
faults of others. Her picture stands out distinctly in its beau- 
tiful proportions in this gallery of memory. 

Mrs. Cleora Seaman, wife of John Seaman, was identified 
with the interests of this church almost from the beginning. 
Her influence for good was powerful until her death in 1869. 
She was a woman of noble intellect, ready and boundless sym- 
pathy, and warm and generous nature. Her temperament was 
hopeful, her faith strong. She had great moral courage united 
with nervous force. These qualities made her a rare power in 
helping others. On the wings of her own strong faith she lift- 
ed weaker souls out of themselves into a higher region of trust. 
It can never be known until the great day how many souls were 



68 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

helped by her influence toward Christ and heaven. Many here 
will remember her magnetic words spoken in the social meet- 
ings of the church. We can see in memory her tall form, and 
open kindly face beaming with hope and courage. She gave 
the best she had to the church of her adoption, but her power 
for good was felt throughout the city, especially among the 
poor and afflicted. Her last words spoken to her daughter,. 
Mrs. Lucy Bainbridge, embodied the secret of her life-long: 
faith for herself and others, "Lucy, I have been a great sinner,, 
but I have a great Saviour." 

These women of whom we have spoken were not perfect, but 
the grace of God ennobled them. 

There were others, doubtless, whose names we have failed to* 
recall, but their record is on high. 

We make grateful mention of the wives of three of the later- 
pastors of the church. Mrs. Strong was a great aid to her hus- 
band, and was always in fullest sympathy with the interests of 
the church during the eight years of her residence with us. 
Mrs. Behrends and Mrs. Gardner each did quiet but im- 
portant service for the church in the sanctuary of the home by 
cheerfully bearing the burdens of domestic care, thus greatly 
increasing the power of their husbands in its service. The news 
of Mrs. Behrends' death, which occurred early in 1882, brought 
grief to many hearts. 

Many of the three hundred and sixty women whose names « 
stand now among the living upon our church roll have for 
more than a score of years carried on the work laid down by 
those who have been called home. Mrs. N. C. Hills, Mrs.. 
William T. Smith, Mrs. Sylvester Eanney, Mrs. J. K. Miller,. 
Mrs. Deacon Holly, Mrs. Sanborn, Mrs. C. E. Wheeler, Mrs. 
J. P. Bishop, Mrs. J. M. Hoyt, Mrs. Stillman Witt, stood 
side by side with some of them. It is not for us to speak 
of the work of the living, but we here render a tribute of 
thanksgiving to God that they, with many others, fill their 
places here. There are women in this church who have freely 
given years of service in leading our songs of praise. The- 
longest period of service was rendered by Mrs. E. 0. Eouse, 
who aided her husband in the choir for twenty-five years. 
They have fostered the growth of the missionary spirit in the- 
church and greatly enlarged its contributions. 



THE WOMEN OF THE CHURCH. GO 

In times of special financial burden it has been the joy of 
the women of this church to render what assistance they 
could. 

From the days when Mrs. Rouse was president of the Mar- 
tha Washington Society of 1832 until the present time, they 
have shared largely in the wonderful temperance movements 
that have taken place. 

They gave their strength to their country in all the organ- 
ized work of women during the war. 

To-day the church is largely represented in the Woman's 
"Christian Association, of Cleveland, that grand union city 
misssionary organization . 

The Female Sewing Society, of 1834, with its first contri- 
bution of $24.10, was a little rill that has broadened until in 
later years it is known as the Woman's Missionary Society, 
whose contributions for Home and Foreign Missions amounted 
in 1882 to $1,696.35. 

The old-fashioned habit of meeting for the purpose of 
sewing still retains its popularity, because, forsooth, nothing 
has been found to take its place as a nucleus of social interest 
in all church service. There is no article in our modern con- 
stitution forbidding " trifling and unprofitable conversation," 
but we trust that the spirit of the text has not lost its con- 
trolling influence. 

It was said that we would not attempt to speak of the liv- 
ing, but there is one name that should be remembered here to- 
night with love and reverence. 

Mrs. Rebecca Rouse is not with us in bodily presence, as by 
reason of the infirmities of eighty-three years she is confined to 
her room. We may truly name her the mother of the Cleve- 
land Baptist Churches. Her influence has been felt in many 
of the large benevolent enterprises of our city. For thirty 
years she has been president of the Cleveland Protestant Or- 
phan Asylum, and during the time of our Civil War she was 
president of the Ladies' Aid Society of the Sanitary Commis- 
sion. But the best of her life has been given to the church of 
her choice. For years she has been laid aside from active 
participation in its work, but none the less has she been in- 
terested in its prosperity. She still gives her prayers and 



70 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

contributions to its welfare, and inspires us with new strength 
and courage in the work. 

Her mind is always clearly and fully informed in regard to 
the great missionary interests of our denomination, so that her 
evening-time is made light with the beatific vision of the on- 
ward march of the kingdom of Christ. 

May the Father's tender benedictions cheer her last days 
while she waits for the summons to the church above. 

I may be pardoned here for a reference to personal expe- 
rience. From the time of my union with this church, twenty- 
seven years ago, until the present, it has been a matter of con- 
tinual wonder and thanksgiving that so large a number of 
reliable woman were identified with its interests. 

Some of the most beautiful examples of Christian character 
have been among those who enjoyed superior advantages and 
an abundance of earthly good. Others of equal beauty have 
dwelt in lowly homes and engaged in menial service, but their 
hearts and hopes have centered here in this blessed Christian 
home without caste or division. 

We pray that in the larger future which opens before us, 
the women of the church may inherit the spirit of those whose 
names we record, and that, quickened by the inspiring mem- 
ory of such a past, they may be prepared to meet the grander 
opportunities and graver responsibilities which that future 
brings. 



THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 



[The Semi-centennial Sermon preached on Sunday, February 25th, by 
the pastor, Rev. P. S. Moxom, was so appropriate and interesting that its 
publication in connection with the historical papers was unanimously re- 
quested, and it is given below.] 



MEMORIES AND LESSONS OF THE PAST ; INSPI- 
RATIONS AND MOPES FOR THE FUTURE. 

"Other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors." 

Our hearts to-day are stirring with thoughts and memories 
awakened by the services and festivities of last week. For a 
little time we have paused amidst the hurry and turmoil of 
daily life, to hold reverent and joyous communion with the 
past. Our minds have been busy with the names, and deeds, 
and characters of the dead. Some of you have been living 
over again scenes and events that had place in your own expe- 
rience. Others have learned for the first time the story of 
men and women of whose faith, and toil, and self-sacrifice this 
church is, under God, the fruit. It is proper that the occasion 
should furnish my theme for to-day. It is my purpose, there- 
fore, to speak of the past, and to give, briefly and simply, some 
of the lessons suggested by the review which we have all been 
permitted to make of the history of this church. I shall speak 
of our relation to the past, and the obligations which it in- 
volves. There are two views of the past, the one or the other 
of which holds place in many minds, both of which are false. 

(1.) On the one hand there is frequently to be found, par- 
ticularly among the young, a contempt for the past as being 



72 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

an inferior stage in the progress of human society. Advancing 
knowledge of the material arts, and the development of social 
and political institutions, beget in shallow minds a supercilious 
conceit. Especially is this true when civilization has grown up 
on a basis of pioneer life, with its hard and narrow circum- 
stance, its rough, if honest, manners, its lack of graceful cul- 
ture, and its homely speech. The log-cabin, with its rude 
furnishings, looks very small to many peojole, as it lies in the 
perspective that stretches behind the palatial mansion, with its 
soft luxury and ample proportions. The present is so com- 
manding ; it is so rich in arts and inventions ; it has such fer- 
tility of resources ; it affords so great liberty ; it possesses such 
wealth, and so numerous facilities for communication, travel, 
amusement, and education; that in comparison even the recent 
past is scarcely absolved from some taint of barbarism. We 
wonder how our fathers and grandfathers managed to make life 
tolerable. The habit which rules many minds, of looking chief- 
ly at the externals of life, begets a feeling of half scornful pity 
for those who had no share in the privileges of the present. 
The old "homespun" days are thought of with something of 
the resentful shame that the callow student of anthropology 
feels as he contemplates the suggestion of his physical deriva- 
tion from the mollusk or the ape. 

(2.) On the other hand, there is a disposition in many 
minds to undervalue the present in comparison with the past. 
Naturally, this is more often the foible .of the aged. They 
look back upon by-gone days as one on a journey looks back 
upon the landscape which he has left behind. Distance clothes 
all ruggedness and unsightliness with a veil of purple mist. 
Every outline is softened. Perspective brings all objects into 
harmonious relation. Thus time throws a soft glamour over 
the past which hides its defects and deformities, and even dis- 
solves them intG elements of tender beauty in the picture that 
artful memory paints. How many are fond of singing the 
praises of the good old days, while they disparage the day that 
now is. They see only a meretricious splendor in present 
achievements. They despise the suavity and grace of culti- 
vated manners as effeminacy. They denounce luxury as the 
generator of strange vices. They look upon a prevalent art as an 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 73 

irridescence that plays upon the surface of corruption. No- 
thing in the present is good as compared with what they re- 
member of the past. They live with their faces turned back- 
ward, as those who at sunset recall the glories of a day that is 
fast fading into night. 

Both of these views, the one exaggerating the present and 
despising the past ; the other, despising the present and exalt- 
ing the past; find expression in the words, as they dominate 
the opinions, of men whom, perhaps, we know ; and both 
views are wrong. 

(3.) Philosophers tell us much now of the solidarity of the 
race. Humanity, they say truly, is one. The man of to-day 
is close kin to the man who delved the plains of Shinar or 
reared the pyramids of Egypt, forty centuries ago. There is a 
true solidarity, or rather, a true continuity, of human history. 
No age can justly be separated from the ages that precede or 
follow. The web of history is seamless. Its colors change ; 
here gloom predominates and there brightness ; in one place the 
figure is beautiful, in another it is distorted and uncouth; but 
warp and woof are unbroken. And the continuity of human 
history is not the continuity of mere succession. It is vital. 
History is a life-process. The thoughts and habits of one gen- 
eration are product of the thinking and conduct of the genera- 
tions before it. The present is flower and fruit of the past, as it 
is seed-plot and germ of the future. Nothing great and good 
is of sudden growth. That which is best matures most slowly. 
It strikes deep roots down through centuries. The fairest blos- 
soms of modern civilization are the flowering forth of growths 
that began in the silence and darkness of a forgotten age. We 
can not cut ourselves loose from the past, any more than the 
mighty river can part itself from the springs that gush unseen 
out of the far distant hills. We are heirs and not creators of 
our largest possessions. " Every ship that comes to America," 
says Emerson, " got its chart from Columbus. Every novel is 
a debtor to Homer. Every carpenter who shaves with a fore- 
plane borrows the genius of a forgotten inventor. Life is girt 
all round with a zodiac of sciences, the contributions of men 
who have perished to add their point of light to our sky." 
America, with its large liberty, is the product of forces that go 



74 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

back to the day when Paul on the Acropolis at Athens shook 
the foundations of ancient despotism with the mighty words, 
" God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on 
all the face of the earth." Our freedom in worship we owe 
to the brave work of such men as Eoger Williams and Wil- 
liam of Orange and Martin Luther. Our most precious priv- 
ileges have been won for us by the courage, the toil, the 
tears, and often the blood of men whose deeds were done in 
the past but whose spirits belong to all time. Our wealth is 
built on foundations that our fathers reared. Our commerce 
was made possible by the waste-conquering prowess of the early 
pioneers. Our luxuriant systems of education have come to us 
through the slow evolution of principles that antedate by long 
years the rise of public schools. Our laws and institutions, 
which are our boast, are not our own achievement. Even our 
faith, as to its chief contents, is hereditary. We are but 

' ' The heirs of all the ages, 
In the foremost files of time." 

Others have labored and we have entered into their labors. 
What each generation adds to the sum total of human advance- 
ment is small compared with what it inherits, and what each 
generation achieves would be, impossible but for the vantage 
ground won by generations now dead. Our greatest inspira- 
tions are begotten by the heroisms of the past. 

While, then, the present is better than the past, wider in its 
liberties, richer in its possessions, and greater in power ; while 
it has a broader horizon, as one who climbs a mountain side 
has a broader view than he who lingers near the base ; yet it is 
only a shallow mind that has no deep veneration for the past, 
and that recognizes not our indebtedness to it for almost all the 
treasures of the present. No man is safe who abandons mem- 
ory, and no nation has stability that forgets or despises the 
past. The present ought to be better than the past, as " the 
full corn in the ear " is better than the stalk which bears it ; 
but the very worth of ripened grain is shared by stalk and leaf 
and root. 

On the other hand, the present is not to be undervalued in 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 75 

comparison with the past, for thus the impulse of progress is 
paralyzed and the promise of former years is unfulfilled. The 
true view is that which sees history in its wholeness, and appre- 
ciates what now is as the fruit of what has been. 

Let me narrow the field of our vision for a moment to this 
church. We stand to-day nearly six hundred strong, possessed 
of large material and intellectual resources, and enjoying com- 
forts and privileges that were unknown to the fathers. We 
have new and better agencies for Christian work. We have a 
broader view of the world's needs and an increased capacity for 
supplying those needs. We have fewer privations and trials, 
at least of such as are common to a more primitive state of so- 
ciety. And we have wider actual or possible influence on the 
multitude. What is the relation which we, with these mani- 
fold advantages, sustain to the past of this church? The an- 
swer to this question is given in the history of the church justly 
interpreted. How large is our debt to the faithful men and 
women, who, in the fear of God, founded this church, who put 
their hearts' blood into it, who watered it with their tears and 
fertilized it with their prayers, who gave to it an unwearied 
care and a self-forgetting devotion to which some of us are 
strangers. The church to-day is, under God, the product of 
the past. It is, in one aspect, the monument that both records 
and justifies the labors and sacrifices of such men as Taggart, 
and Bouse, and White, and Witt, and Seaman, and Banney, 
and Bishop, and Dunham, and their noble companions. I 
cannot recount all the names of those who are gone. Their 
names are written in heaven. Some of them have been forgot- 
ten by their successors, but their work lives and they live in 
their work. 

Of the living, I may not now speak, but there are a few 
among us whom God has kindly spared to witness the large 
fruit of that faithful sowing fifty years ago. They have a 
warm and abiding place in our affections. Compared with the 
present the past was " a day of small things," as men are wont 
to judge. But the judgment is wrong. The day of seeming 
small things was a day of great things. Measured not by ma- 
terial but by moral standards, the work of those who built a 
house unto God on Seneca street is not less but greater than 



76 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

the work which we have done in these recent prosperous 
years ; for their work nourished the roots of present enter- 
prise. Without them we had not been what we are. 

What a heritage we have in the history of this church! 
How it stirs our hearts as it is told to us ! Who of us is not 
proud with a pure pride and grateful with an abounding grat- 
itude, as he thinks of the noble lives whose hopes and fears 
and joys and griefs and prayers and possessions were built 
into the very foundations of this church ! Little can we afford 
either to despise or forget the past in any vain self -congratula- 
tion over the present. As little can we, in justice to the mem- 
ory of the dead, depreciate the present. If the present is not 
worthy of the past, then we have reason for self-condemnation 
and humble confession. But, while we should not indulge in 
any foolish conceit over our present achievements, as though 
we had wrought great things, we ought to be thankful for our 
present condition and opportunities. And out of the past we 
should draw an impulse that shall urge us on to larger and bet- 
ter Work in the days before us. That we may do this, I ask 
you to consider how we may fitly recognize, and in some worthy 
measure discharge, the debt which we owe to the past. We can 
do this : 

1. By cherishing the memory and preserving the history of 
the past. 

In olden times the People of Israel were commanded to per- 
petuate the memory of their past by observing certain periodic 
ceremonies and festivals. Their great feasts were the out- 
growth of their divinely shaped experiences, and commemorat- 
ed noteworthy events. But, if possible, still more significant 
than these memorial feasts was the custom, early established in 
obedience to God's command, of daily instructing the children 
in the knowledge of the nation's history. Every solemn cere- 
mony of their religion, and every joyful festival, gave to the 
head of each family a text for a sermon to his household on 
God's dealings with his people in the past. As each new gen- 
eration grew up the question perpetually recurred: "What is 
the meaning of these observances?" And the answer was a 
perpetual lesson in history. To this custom of domestic in- 
struction founded on national observances, more than to any 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 77 

other single thing, was due the development of that wonderfully 
vital national consciousness which marks the Hebrew race 
and preserves its distinctive character through the lapse of 
centuries. No people have been so broken and scattered as the 
Hebrew people, and yet no people is so indestructible. The 
modern Jew, not less than his ancestor of two thousand years 
ago, cherishes the memory of the Patriarchs, the Exodus, the 
giving of the law, and the succeeding history of the twelve 
tribes, with a fervor of devotion that no adversity can quench. 
Is there not a lesson for us in this ? The history of the uni- 
versal Church of Christ is as truly a continuous illustration of 
Divine Providence as the history of Israel, and the history of 
each local church has in it elements worthy of perpetual re- 
membrance. The impulse of gratitude to God should both 
keep alive in our hearts the memory of the past and prompt us 
to such deeds as those who come after us will not willingly for- 
get. They are unworthy children who suffer the names of 
their fathers to sink into oblivion. Let us, then, tell the story 
01 the past to all the young who come within the bounds of the 
church, that they may know what God hath wrought, and that 
they may be inspired to noble and righteous living by the ex- 
ample of the noble and righteous dead. 

•2. We can, in some measure, discharge our debt to the past 
by living in a way that is worthy of the past. We have 
more abundant resources for fulfilling the mission of the church 
than those who preceded us. We should abundantly use these 
resources. We can not justly measure our duty by the obliga- 
tions resting on the fathers, but by the spirit which they 
brought to their opportunities and tasks. Not the things 
which they did but the way in which they did them should 
guide our enterprise. Out of their poverty they gave with un- 
stinting hand. We must give with the same generous im- 
pulse out of our wealth. They were zealous in the use of their 
little opportunity. We must be zealous in the use of our great 
opportunity. They were patient and prayerful and steadfast 
in toil and in trial. If we are less in these qualities than they, 
then we are degenerate children, unworthy of our sires. Our 
life must broaden to the breadth of our circumstances in the 
spirit which animated them if we would rise even to the level 



78 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

on which they stood. There are sons and daughters in the 
church to-day of men and women whose names are a lasting 
benediction, and whose influence still pervades the air like an 
imperishable fragrance. Are the sons and daughters true heirs 
of those who are gone ? Does the spirit of the dead still 
breathe in the living ? We know that it does in some. God 
grant that it may revive in all, that the heroic days of the 
church pass not forever away. 

3. In the third place, we may discharge in part our debt to 
the past, by leaving to those who come after us a heritage not 
less but greater than that ivhich has come to us. Our debt to 
the past is a debt to the future. What memories are we pre- 
paring for those who fifty years hence shall celebrate the cen- 
tennial of the church ? Will those then living recall our names 
with the deep reverence and tender love which we now feel for 
the men and women who planned and toiled fifty years ago ? 
The pioneers planted many trees whose fruit they did not 
gather. That fruit in mellow ripeness falls into our hands to- 
day. So we are to plant trees whose fruit hands yet unborn 
shall pluck. Thus only can we repay our debt for that harvest 
on which we bestowed no labor. As others labored and we 
have entered into their labors, so may the coming generation 
witness to our fidelity by reaping that of which not they but 
we are the sowers. 

4. Another way in which we can repay our debt to the past 
is by cultivating not only a higher estimate of present opportu- 
nities and duties, but also a wanner appreciation of present 
companionships. Too often we appreciate our fellows only 
when they are dead. Death lays his finger on the lips of cap- 
tious criticism, and opens the eyes to previously unseen or only 
half-seen virtues. How true it is that we really know those 
about us only after they have left our side and passed beyond 
the reach of our praise. Many a true heart is chilled by neg- 
lect. Many a willing hand is paralyzed by want of quick and 
sympathetic cooperation. We look into each other's faces and 
see little of what is going on in the soul. The bravest and best 
are least demonstrative and least given to complaining ; while 
eyes that meet our gaze calmly and with no tell-tale shadow of 
reproach or appeal, weep inwardly tears of bitter grief and un- 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 79 

utterable longing for a little human sympathy. As soldiers die 
side by side in battle each unconscious of the other's sharp 
agony, so often Christians toil and strive within hand's reach of 
each other and know not each other's pain. It is right that we 
should honor and love the dead, but not less right is it that we 
should love and honor the living. Is there some inexorable law 
that we should not be generous or even just to our brothers and 
sisters while they are within sound of our voices ? Is death the 
only solvent that shall effectually reduce the barriers that ignor- 
ance and selfishness, or the paltry conventionalities of society, 
build up between us ? I have been thinking that some ears now 
drugged with death would have joyfully received words of 
praise that have been uttered during the past week. Would not 
some toilers have sunk more restfully to their last sleep if they 
had known that their toil and sacrifice for the good of men 
were appreciated while they still waked and worked ? Why is 
it that we must perpetually learn the lesson of human, Christly 
charity toward the dead and learn not the lesson of charity 
toward the living ? I remember a little song that told a heart's 
deep longing for present appreciation and sympathy better than 
I can. This is part of it — 

If I should die to-night, 
My friends would call to mind with loving thought, 
Some kindly deed the icy hand had wrought, 
Some gentle words the frozen lips had said — 
Errands on which the willing feet had sped ; 
The memory of selfishness and pride, 
My hasty words would all be laid aside, 
And so I should be loved and mourned to-night. 

If I should die to-night, 
Even hearts estranged would turn once more to me, 
Recalling other days remorsefully ; 
The eyes that chilled me with averted glance, 
Would look upon me as of yore, perchance, 
And soften in the old familiar way ; 
For who could war with dumb, unconscious clay ? 
So I might rest, forgiven of all, to-night. 

Oh, friends, I pray to-night, 
Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow ; 
The way is lonely, let me feel them now. 



80 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 

Think gently of me ; I am travel-worn ; 
My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn. 
Forgive, oh heart estranged, forgive, I plead ! 
When dreamless rest is mine I shall not need 
The tenderness for which I long to-night. 

My brethren, the thought that more than any other swells 
my heart to-day is this thought on the duty of cultivating a 
warm and practical apjjreciation of those who pray and work 
and suffer and rejoice with us. Let us not leave it for those 
who remember our fellow-workers to do the duty which we owe 
who know them. Shall not the sweet and hallowing influences 
of our jubilee celebration make us more patient to those whom 
we deem the erring, more loving to those whom we sometimes 
think unlovely, more helpful to the weak who hide their weak- 
ness, more sympathetic toward those who need sympathy 
though they do not loudly plead for it, more generously appre- 
ciative of all who, with us, pray and labor and give ?• If the 
memories of the dead that are stirring in many hearts now 
shall make us warmer-hearted toward the living, shall not the 
best result of our festival be secured, and shall not even the 
dead, as from the celestial heights to which fchey have gone 
they gaze "with larger, other eyes than ours" on our labor and 
strife here below, receive some added bliss to their calm and 
holy joy ? 

5. Finally, we can fully recognize and rightly estimate our 
debt to the past only by realizing that our debt to the past is a 
debt to God. It is He who gave us the fathers. His spirit 
called and inspired them. His love comforted them. His 
Providence guarded and guided them. The history of the 
church is but a fragment of that history of divine grace toward 
men which stretches back to the earliest day of human life, and 
reaches on into the measureless future. The names and deeds 
that fill our hearts with grateful pride as we recall the vanished 
years are God's precious gift to us. For many of us He was 
preparing this gift long before we knew Him or the church, or 
even lived. Why is it that we have come into such goodly 
heritage ? The answer to this is found only in that boundless 
goodness which prepares all blessings for us and brings us into 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON. 81 

possession of them at the fitting time. You remember in one 
of the Psalms is this beautiful line, "He giveth his beloved 
sleep." 

True as it is, and suggestive of the tenderness of God's care 
for his children, as of an infinite motherliness, this sentence 
does not express the exact thought of the Psalmist. For, 
rightly translated the Hebrew gives us in English speech this : 
" He giveth to His beloved in sleep." 

So wide and overflowing is God's love that He gives far be- 
yond all our endeavor and expectation, not only when we strive 
but when we rest ; and even in sleep his blessings come upon us 
as the gentle rains of a summer's night come upon the sleeping 
earth. He prepares joys and benefits for us in the secrets 
of His good intention and they come unsought. Thus to many 
of us God has given in the history of this church a cluster of 
priceless blessings for which we have not striven, of which we 
had not dreamed. Let us be grateful to Him who, best of all 
gifts, has bestowed upon us His own Son to be our Saviour and 
Lord. Surely " He that spared not His own Son, but delivered 
Him up for us all, shall He not with Him also freely give us all 
things?" Let not the emotions which have been wakened by 
the things that we have heard pass fruitlessly away. Bather 
may they become for us all the beginnings of a completer conse- 
cration to Christ, a warmer love for His Church, a clearer fidel- 
ity in every duty, and a deeper love and sympathy toward all 
our fellow-creatures. And then to Him who forgiveth all our 
iniquities, who healeth all our diseases, and who crowneth us 
with loving kindness and tender mercies, shall we joyfully give 
liaise, and honor, and glory forever. . Amen. 



OFFICERS OF THE FIRST BAPTIST 
CHURCH AND SOCIETY. 



OFFICERS OF THE OHUEOH. 
Pastor, - ... PHILIP S. MOXOM. 

DEACONS. 

WILLIAM T. SMITH, BENJAMIN F. ROUSE, 

CHARLES G. KING, RALPH P. MYERS, 

J. WILLIAM TAYLOR, JAMES RABONE, 

AUGUSTUS T. STOUT, CHARLES A. SMITH. 

CLERK. 

GEORGE B. CHRISTIAN. 

TREASURER OF BENEVOLENT FUNDS. 

JAMES RABONE. 

CHURCH MISSIONARY. 

MRS. AUGUS1A H. ADAMS. 



OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. 

President, JAMES PARKER. 

Secretary, - - - - J. W. TAYLOR. 

Treasurer, - - - - GUSTAYUS A. HYDE. 

TRUSTEES. 

C. P. LELAND, W. H. HARRIS, D. MARTIN, A. S. VAN WICKLE, 
FREEMAN BUTTS. 

Sexton, HENRY HUGE. 



THE FIRST BAPTIST SUNDAY SCHOOL. 



PREPARED BY PHILIP S . MOXOM. 



The First Baptist Sunday School was organized, through 
the efforts of Benjamin Rouse, in the "Old Academy," on the 
sixth day of February, 1833, with twenty-eight scholars. Its 
first library was a collection of books valued at ten dollars, 
which was presented by the American Sunday School Union 
through Mr. Rouse, who was the agent and colporter of the 
Union". The first superintendent was Thomas Whelpley. He 
served a little less than two years, and was succeeded early in 
1835 by William Beebe. The latter died within a few months 
after his election. 

From July, 1835, to the following April, the care of the 
school seems to have been shared by Deacons Benjamin Rouse 
and Moses White, and Mr. James A. Briggs. In April, 1836, 
Wm. T. Smith, having made his home in Cleveland and united 
with the church by letter from the First Church of Rochester, 
ri. Y. , was chosen superintendent. He most acceptably filled 
the office until, in 1840, by his motion, James M. Hoyt was 
elected to the superintendency of the school. Mr. Hoyt served 
in this position, with characteristic fidelity, for twenty-five 
years. He was succeeded in the latter part of 1865 or the be- 
ginning of 1866, by Ralph P. Myers. Mr. Myers was an efficient 
superintendent until 1874, when he resigned to assume the 
charge of the new school in Idaka chapel in association with H. 
A. Sherwin. In 1874 Colgate Hoyt, whose enthusiastic ser- 
vice many younger members of the church still recall, was 
elected and served until some time in 1878, when he resigned 
and Mr. Charles A. Smith, the present superintendent, was 
chosen. 

It is unnecessary to give in detail the yearly statistics of the 



84 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

school. A significant indication of its growth may be seen in. 
a comparison of statistics for 1853 with those of 1883. 

Thirty years ago there were : 

Scholars enrolled 180 

Teachers 31 

Total 211 

Average attendance 135 

Number of volumes in library 380 

The report for the year ending March 3 1st, 1883, gives the 
following : 

Average enrollment of Scholars 532 

Teachers 37 

Officers 10 

Total enrollment 579 

Average weekly attendance of Scholars 398 

Teachers 33 

Officers 9 

Total average attendance 440 

Number of volumes in library 655 

It will be observed that the school has had but seven super- 
intendents during fifty years, and the service of four of these 
(two of them from one family, and one of them still in office), 
covers a period of forty-three years. It is earnestly hoped that 
the present superintendent may continue in charge yet many 
years. 

Some characteristics of the school may be briefly noted : 

First. The school has been for many years a working 
school, never given to any sort of sensationalism in methods. 
It has also developed many workers who have gone into other 
schools to perpetuate the impulse received here. 

Second. It has always been a true nursery and feeder of 
the church, many of the church members having been con- 
verted in the school. Faithful teaching has thus had abund- 
ant fruit. 

Third. The school is marked by its simple, steadfast ad- 
herence to the Bible. No lesson papers are allowed in the 
classes. The result of this has been an unusual thoroughness 



THE SUNDA Y SCHOOL. §5 

of acquaintance, on the part of teachers and many scholars, 
with the Word of G-od instead of with commentary and cate- 
chism. 

Fourth. The school has, as a part of its organization, a 
Teachers' Supply class, which, taught by the pastor, studies 
the lesson each Sunday one week in advance. Consequently 
there is always a supply of teachers, prepared to fill vacancies. 

Fifth. The collections of the school are conscientiously 
and systematically set apart for henevolence. Contributions 
are regularly sent to the American Baptist Missionary Union, 
the American Baptist Home Mission Society, and the Amer- 
ican Baptist Publication Society, and frequent gifts are made 
for various other missionary and charitable purposes. The 
offerings of the school have increased until they aggregate 
about S500 a year. Often a single collection exceeds 820. 

This brief sketch must serve in lieu of a full history of the 
school. The present officers are : 

Superintendent Charles A. Smith. 

Assistant Superintendent Ralph T. King. 

Secretary William: J. Krause. 

Treasurer Charles F. Wheelock. 

Treasurer of Benevolent Fund Herbert S. Rldgway. 

Librarian Eugene Mansfield. 

Assistant Librarian Frank Fretter. 

Chorister Carroll B. Ellinwood. 

Orchestra Leader Prof. L. J. Thorndyke. 

Superintendent of Infant Department .... Mrs. Howard Mansfield. 
Assistants . . Miss Addle Rldgway, Miss Emma Rabon, and Mrs. Liz- 
zie Gebhardt. 

A paper is annually published for the church and school 
called the Welcome Visitor, which has an edition of over 700 
•copies. 



STATISTICS OF OTHER BAPTIST CHURCHES 
IN CLEVELAND. 



COLLATED BY G. A. HYDE. 



EUCLID AVENUE BAPTIST CHURCH. 

In the spring of 1846, brethren of the .First Baptist and 
other churches of the city organized a Sunday school in the 
house of worship of the German Evangelical Church, on the 
corner of Eagle and Erie streets, under the name of the Cleve- 
land Union Sunday School. Rev. J. H. Walden, pastor of the 
First Baptist Church, who was the mover of the enterprise, su- 
perintended the school for a few Sabbaths, until J. Stafford 
was chosen superintendent, and Frederick Tolhurst, secretary 
and librarian. Scholars numbered about fifty. 

April 1st, 1850, the school removed into a chapel at the 
corner of Erie and Ohio streets. • 

July 20th, 1851, Rev. J. Hyatt Smith commenced his la- 
bors to establish the Erie Street Baptist Church. 

August 19th, 1851, the church adopted articles of faith and 
covenant, and elected Benjamin Rouse and Abijah Wheeler as 
deacons, and Ezra Thomas as treasurer. 

September 2d, 1851, the society was organized, adopted a 
constitution, and elected as its first board of trustees : Ran- 
som G-reen, president ; V. A. Payne, H. Ranney, A. J. Farrar, 
Peter Abbey and Daniel Himebaugh ; clerk, B. F. Eouse ; 
treasurer, Ezra Thomas. 

October 5th, 1851, Rev. J. Hyatt Smith accepted a call to 
become pastor of the church, and the church was recognized 
by a council, October 16th, 1851. 

The number of constituent members was forty-three. 



OTHER BAPTIST CHURCHES. 87 

October 9th, 1868, the name of the church was changed to 
the Second Baptist Church. 

March 5th, 1871, the new house of worship at the corner of 
Euclid avenue and Huntington street was dedicated to the wor- 
ship of God. 

In the year 1879 the name of the church was changed to the 
Euclid Avenue Baptist Church. 

February 16th, 1883, the church has for pastor, Eev. George 
Thomas Dowling ; clerk, A.J. Farrar ; treasurer, C. A. David- 
son; deacons, Ezra Thomas, Edgar E.Waller, Edgar Adams, 
A. T. Osborn and C. S. Butts; trustees, Edgar Adams presi- 
dent, Ezra Thomas, J. D. Rockefeller, A. T. Osborn, Frank 
Rockefeller and S. H. Chisholm. Membership, four hundred 
and seventy. The Sunday school has for superintendent, J. D. 
Rockefeller; first assistant supt., A. T. Osborn; second assistant 
supt., C. B. Gay; secretary and treasurer, S. A. McDonald. 
Enrollment about four hundred. 

THIRD BAPTIST CHURCH. 

The Sunday school which preceded the formation of the 
Third Baptist Church, was organized in the fall of 1851, as a 
Union Sunday school, and in the spring of 1852, as a Baptist 
Sunday school, with Loren Prentiss, Esq., as superintendent, 
and an attendance of about one hundred. 

The church was organized December 14th, 1853, and had 
for pastor, Rev. S. A. Estee ; clerk, C. A. Crumb ; treasurer, 
Wm. Tompkins ; deacons, John McClelland and Eli Spencer ; 
and twenty constituent members. 

February 16th, 1883, the church has for pastor, Rev. H. 
Brotherton ; clerk, Albert Fisher; treasurer, Owen Lapham ; 
deacons, George ]STorris, Thomas Hobert, J. H. Lapham and 
Chandler Snow ; and a membership of two hundred and thir- 
ty. The Sunday school has George Norris for superintendent, 
and an enrollment of about one hundred. 

The Dare Street Mission Sunday School was organized 
December 31st, 1871, by members of the Third Baptist Church; 
having for superintendent, Charles Brigham ; assistant su- 
perintendent, Andrew Cant ; secretary and treasurer, Louis 
Howlett ; and. an enrollment of one hundred and sixty-four. 



88 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

February 16th, 1883, the school has for superintendent, J. 
H. Lapham ; assistant superintendent, William Dowling ; 
treasurer, George Meyers ; and an enrollment of five hundred 
a'nd nineteen. 

SUPERIOR STREET BAPTIST CHURCH. 

The Sunday school which preceded the formation of the 
Cottage Baptist Church was organized May 30th, 1852, in a 
cottage on St. Clair street, near Dodge street, with Deacon 
Benjamin Rouse as superintendent; S. S. Boughton, secretary; 
and a membership of fifty-seven. 

Shortly after the school was organized, Benjamin F. Rouse, 
son of Deacon Benjamin Rouse, became superintendent, and so 
remained until the school had grown into a church, a period of 
some fourteen years. During that time, between one hundred 
and fifty and two hundred were converted and received into 
the First Baptist Church. 

A chapel was built on the same lot in 1858, and dedicated 
January 30th, 1859, and was occupied by the school after that 
date. 

In September, 1869, the chapel was moved to its present 
location on Superior street, corner of Minnesota street. 

September 15th, 1870, the Cottage Baptist Church was or- 
ganized, and had for pastor, Rev. E. A. Taft ; clerk, J. C. 
Graham ; treasurer, G. A. Hyde ; deacons, G. A. Hyde, C. 
E. Wheeler and H. S. Julier ; trustees, for Cleveland Baptist 
Union, Stillman Witt, James M. Hoyt and B. F. Rouse ; and 
constituent members, one hundred and six. 

In 1878 the name of the church was changed to the Supe- 
rior Street Baptist Church. 

February 16th, 1883, the pulpit is supplied by Dr. G. L. 
Stevens ; clerk, Edward Coulton ; treasurer, Wm. Masters ; 
deacons, John Coulton, Wm. Masters, John McKay and. A. 
Lathrop ; and a membership of one hundred and forty. Su- 
perintendent of Sunday school, Wm. McKay ; assistant su- 
perintendent, Wm. Masters ; school enrollment, one hundred 
and ten. 



OTHER BAPTIST CHURCHES. 89 

WILLSON AVENUE BAPTIST CHURCH. 

The original enterprise that resulted in the formation of 
this church was the organization of the Scovill Avenue Mis- 
sion Sunday School. The house in which the school met was 
situated at the corner of Scovill avenue and Hudson street, 
and was dedicated July 24th, 1859. On the following day the 
school was organized by electing J. P. Bishop, superintendent ; 
C. J. Ballard, assistant superintendent; and T. Carter, secre- 
tary and librarian. At the first session of the school, July 
31st, 1859, there were in attendance, one hundred and seventy- 
three officers, teachers and scholars. 

January 20th, 1868, a church was organized at the Scovill 
Avenue Chapel, called the Tabernacle Baptist Church, and 
had for pastor, Rev. Thos. L. Rogers ; clerk, John Abbott ; 
treasurer, Oscar Townsend ; deacons, Isaac Beare, Wm. Mer- 
cer, John Bennitt and H. A. Pratt ; trustees, John Alexan- 
der, Oscar Townsend, Wm. F. Sellers, Isaac Beare and Rich- 
ard Chandler ;*and a constituent membership of seventy. 

August 11th, 1872, the Garden Street Mission Sunday 
School was organized, with I. P. Chandler, superintendent ; 
Wm. Urquhart, secretary and treasurer ; and an enrollment of 
sixty-eight. 

February 16th, 1879, the Tabernacle Baptist Church and 
the Garden Street Mission Sunday School met and consoli- 
dated and formed the Willson Avenue Baptist Church, and 
dedicated their new house of worship, at the corner of Willson 
avenue and Quincy street. The new church had for pastor, 
Rev. G. 0. King; clerk, Thomas Emery; treasurer, J. W. 
Thompson ; trustees, John Bennitt, Wm. Tompkins, Wm. 
T. Akers, Richard Chandler and John Philpot ; deacons, John 
Bennitt, Wm. Mercer, Wm. Barker and J. W. Thompson; and 
a constituent membership of two hundred and two. 

February 23d, 1879, the Tabernacle Sunday School and the 
Garden Street Mission Sunday School met and formed the 
Willson Avenue Sunday School. The following officers were 
elected: superintendent, L. J. Mattison ; first assistant super- 
intendent, I. P. JChandler ; second assistant superintendent, 
.J.W.Thompson; secretary, J.M.Johnson; assistant secre- 



90 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

tary, Wm. E. Taylor; treasurer, George D. Brainard. To- 
tal number in attendance, four hundred and twenty. 

February 16th, 1883, the church has for pastor, Eev. G. 0_ 
King; clerk, L. J. Mattison ; treasurer, George D. Brainard; 
deacons, Dr. John Bennitt, I. P. Chandler, William Mercer 
and G. H. Olmsted ; trustees, Dr. John Bennitt, I. P. Chand- 
ler, William T. Akers and G . H. Olmsted ; and a membership 
of two hundred and forty-two. ' 

February 16th, 1883, the officers of the Sunday school are : 
superintendent, Prof. S. H. Freeman ; first associate superin- 
tendent, W. W. Sylvester ; second associate superintendent, 
Mrs. G. 0. King ; secretary and treasurer, George D. Brain- 
ard ; assistant secretary and treasurer, W. H.Smith. Total 
enrollment, six hundred and seventy. 

SHILOH BAPTIST CHURCH 

Organized September 2d, 1862. Chairman, John Marvin ;. 
clerk, G. C. Wooden; treasurer, Jefferson Camp; trustees, 
Michael Milligan, Michael Gregory and W. B. Balindine. Con- 
stituent members, seventeen. First pastor, Rev. Reuben Mal- 
vin, in 1864. 

February 16th, 1883, pastor, Rev. H. H. Williams; clerk, 
Anderson Lewis ; treasurer, Daniel Williams ; deacons, John 
Taylor, James Roler, Lemuel Olmstead, Alexander Magee,. 
Dominic Queenann, Henry Harrison and Daniel Williams ; 
trustees, James Roler, Lemuel Olmstead and Dominic Queen- 
ann. 

GERMAN BAPTIST CHURCH. 

Organized December, 1866, with pastor, G. Koopman ; 
clerk, G. Fetzer ; treasurer, A. Fetzer ; deacons, F. Hurle- 
baus and E. Ruegger ; and membership, thirty-seven. 

February 16th, 1883, pastor, J. H.Merkle ; clerk, N. Em- 
erich ; treasurer, H. Schulte ; deacons, A. Nan and G. Wei- 
ner ; trustees, J. C. Hazelhuhn, H. Schulte, F. Bieher, N. 
Emerich and A. Fetzer ; and a membership of one hundred 
and eighty-five. 



OTHER BAPTIST CHURCHES. Qj 

WELSH BAPTIST CHURCH. 

Organized April 19th, 1868. Pulpit supplied by H. C. 
Rowlands, A. M., from the organization till September, 1868. 

First pastor, Rev. Samuel Thomas ; clerk, Lewis Jones : 
treasurer, Benjamin Williams ; deacons, Lewis Jones, John 
James and James Bynon ; trustees, Lewis Jones, Thomas Au- 
relius and Jacob Harris. Constituent members, thirty-eight. 

February 16, 1883, pastor, James F. Richards ; clerk, John 
T. Richards; tieasurer, William Williams; deacons, John 
Stephens, David Parry, John T. Richards and Edward Rod- 
way ; trustees, David Morgan, William Z. Davis and Edward 
Rodman. Membership, fifty-six. 

TRINITY BAPTIST CHURCH. 

The Sunday school which preceded the formation of Trin- 
ity Baptist Church was organized September 17th, 1872, with 
M. J. Battersley as superintendent, and a membership of twen- 
ty-two. 

The church was organized March 4th, 1873, without a pas- 
tor, but had for clerk, E. H. Davis ; deacon, Timothy Heath ; 
and a constituent membership of thirteen. 

The first pastor, Frederick Tolhurst, commenced his labors 
November 1st, 1875, with a membership of twenty-three. 

February 16th, 1883, the church has for pastor, Frederick 
Tolhurst ;* clerk, J. Henry ; deacons, T. Heath, R, Coulton, 
H. A. Kingman and R. Farren ; and a membership of one 
hundred and sixty. The Sunday school has for superintend- 
ent, H. A. Kingman; and a membership of four hundred 
and thirty- two. 

IDAKA MEMORIAL BAPTIST CHURCH. 

The Idaka Chapel, the generous gift of Stillman Witt,' 
was dedicated January 4th, 1874, with appropriate services. 



*Rev. F. Tolhurst died rery suddenly of congestion of the lungs, on 
March 31st, 1883, leaving a family, a church, and a large community deeply 
afflicted by his death. His life was a consecration, his death a triumph. 



92 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 

The preliminary organization of the school was effected 
January 7th, 1874, by the appointment of R. P. Myers, super- 
intendent, and "W. E. Clark, secretary. The first session of 
the school was held January 11th, 1874, with an attendance 
of seventeen officers and teachers, and thirty-one scholars. 

The permanent organization was effected March 29th, 1874, 
by the election of E. P. Myers and H. A. Sherwin, superin- 
tendents ; W. E. Clarke, secretary and treasurer ; Mrs. W. E. 
Clarke, superintendent of primary department, and Miss Em- 
ma Waterbury, assistant ; H. F. Carleton, librarian, and Ed- 
ward Worfolk, assistant. 

The average attendance for the first quarter was ninety-six. 

February 16th, 1883, the school has for superintendent, G. 
P. Comey, Jr.; assistant superintendent, H. S. Julier ; super- 
intendent of primary department, Mrs. W. E. Clarke ; assist- 
ant, Miss Carrie E. Shurmer; secretary, G. A. Hyde; assistant, 
G-. N. Chandler ; librarian, Henry H. Hyde ; assistant, Try on 
Dunham. Average attendance during last year, two hundred 
and fifty-five. 

The first steps to organize the church were taken December 
3d, 1882, at a meeting of the officers and teachers of the Idaka 
Sunday school, by the appointment of a committee to canvass 
for members to form the church, and obtain pledges for sup- 
port of pastor and other church expenses. 

April 6th, 1883, letters of dismission were granted to thir- 
ty-nine members of the First Baptist Church to form the new 
church, f 

April 11th, 1883, a meeting of those interested was held at 
Idaka Chapel, with J. W. Taylor, chairman, and Geo. P. Co- 
mey, Jr., secretary, and a church was formed, called The Ida- 
ka Memorial Baptist Church. The constituent members 
numbered forty-four. Articles of faith and covenant were 
adopted, and it was decided to call a pastor at once. The offi- 
cers of the church are to be elected April 25th, and recognition 
services will be held May 3d, 1883. 

+ Three of these were dismissed April 20th. 



LETTERS. 



The following letters were read at the banquet. As they 
contain many interesting reminiscences they are printed nearly 
in full : 



Rochester, Feb. 15, 1883. 
My Dear Mr. Moxom : 

I have received the printed invitation to the semi-centennial of the 
church which I love so much, and with which I passed so many happy 
years. I suppose the invitation conies from you, and that you are the proper 
person to whom to send my reply. I am sorry that I cannot be present 
with you at what must prove a most gratifying and enjoyable occasion. My 
engagements here are such that I cannot leave Rochester at this time. It 
would have given me great pleasure to review with you the way in which 
God has led his people these fifty years past, and to recall the delightful 
days when I was permitted to minister among them. I am specially grate- 
ful that your own work has been so signally blessed, and that the old spirit 
of harmony and Christian love still abides. Please communicate my re- 
grets to the brethren, and believe me, with the heartiest wishes for the suc- 
cess of the celebration and for the prosperity of the church through all the 
future, 

Your friend and brother, 

Augustus H. Strong. 



Cincinnati, Feb. 16, 1883. 
Rev. P. S. Moxom, 

Dear Brother: As I understand you desire letters from absent members, 
and as I cannot enjoy the pleasure of participating in the anniversary exer- 
cises, I take the opportunity of sending a few lines . I wish to mention 
more particularly the old brick church on Seneca street. 

Comparatively few of the present membership will remember it. Its 
entire surroundings are now as forbidding as it is possible to conceive, and 
its internal condition entirely changed. It has been occupied as a court of 



•94 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

justice, liquor store, beer saloon and billiard room. Ribald jest and coarse 
profanity have been often beard, where once arose the voice of prayer and 
the song of praise . 

But as it stood in the day of its glory I can see it before my mind, from 
" turret to foundation stone." Around its hallowed walls are clustered 
some of the dearest, purest, holiest memories of my life. Up and down its 
sacred aisles, in his official and Christly life, I have so often seen walk, all 
through those passing years, my loved and now sainted father ; and in her 
seat in the sanctuary and the place of prayer, my no less sainted mother. 
Within its walls the arrow of conviction reached my heart ; there I surrend- 
ered it to Christ; in its baptismal font was I "buried in baptism," and 
before its holy altar received the "right hand of fellowship. " 

Within its walls, too, Cupid's dart did its fatal work, and my eyes fell 
-upon the fair face of one who has traveled with me the changeful journey 
of life for over a score and a half of years. 

Its three honored pastors I remember well : Levi Tucker, J. H. Wal- 
den and S. W. Adams — men of God, men of earnest prayer, of devoted, 
faithful Christian zeal and hope. ' ' They rest from their labors, and their 
works do follow them." 

How well I can see the house as it then stood. Going in the entrance 
on Seneca street, you cross the hall, and enter the basement, where were held 
the Sunday school, the evening meetings, the fairs and socials when they 
tried to pay off the " church debt." 

I can see the rows of long, heavy wooden seats — the two at the right of 
the entrance in which the deacons sat, men who stood high on the honored 
roll, for their Christian zeal and piety, deacons Sked, Rouse, White, 
Wheeler, Benney, Conger, Hawley, Smith ; all but one have gone to their 
rest, and their reward. May the brightly silvered head and slowly enfeebling 
form that remains, be permitted to linger yet these many years in the field 
in which he has spent his long and useful life. 

In the basement was held the Sunday school, of which Mr. J. M. Hoyt 
was for years the superintendent. It commenced at 9 A. M. He was 
greatly annoyed by the tardy ones who kept coming in during the opening 
exercises, causing a sad interruption. He finally adopted a rule of locking 
the doors at precisely nine o'clock, and unlocking after the exercises were 
concluded. Those who arrived early were greeted by the sight of a large 
card hung on one of the heavy wooden posts, reading: "I am in time;" 
while the accumulated crowd outside, when the doors were opened, were 
chilled by seeing on the card reversed: "I am too late." 

Beyond, in the northeast corner, across the east hall, was the "Infant 
room," presided over by Miss Brayton, Miss Dean and others. Here was 
also held the " Young People's Meeting." 

Up stairs was the main audience room. I can see the white pews, with 
their high white doors, shutting you in and fastening with a brass button, 
and the great white pulpit, with the baptistry beneath it, which was pulled 
out in the middle aisle when the ordinance was administered. 



LETTERS. 95 

I must mention Nicholas Quackenbush, the sexton, familiarly known 
«,s "Nick." The room was heated by two large box stoves for wood. They 
were just below the choir gallery, and Nick frequently took the time during 
.singing as the most economical for doing his banging and firing up, thus 
rendering valuable assistance to the sensitive ear of the chorister. Age is 
•creeping over Nick, and few will recognize in the bent form and shuffling 
gait, the once erect carriage and quick, active tread. 

But I must not dwell longer. The church now worships in a fairer and 
more desirable temple. The record of the old has passed into history, and 
eternity alone will unveil its results. 

But when the church militant shall join the church triumphant, far up 
on the scroll of Christ's redeemed, I fain believe will stand inscribed the 
membership of the old First Baptist Church of Cleveland. 

Yours in faith, 

Chas. M. White. 



Chicago, February 10, 1883. 
Brethren of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland : 

I congratulate you on the fiftieth anniversary of your birth. The full 
rounded half century furnishes food for reflection as to the past, and should 
lead to higher attainments for the future. 

Fifty years ago Cleveland was but a village of some 1 200 people. The 
census of 1830 gave its population as 1,076, and the county of Cuyahoga 
10,360, but both had grown. The whole United States had only 12,856,171 
inhabitants. 

In September, 1832, New York City was supposed to contain 250,000 
inhabitants (by census of 1830, 203,007). A journey from that city to Buffalo 
took a week. Another week was spent in reaching Cleveland, the buildings 
•of which were for the most part of wood. Spangler's tavern, on the north 
side of Superior street, was the best hotel in the place. It was well kept, 
and furnished a good resting place. A stranger halted there, and when 
the precious Sabbath- came, he wanted to refresh his weary spirit by wor- 
ship in God's house. There was an Episcopal church, a frame building, 
perhaps two blocks off in a northeast direction, and in the third story of Kel- 
logg's brick building, opposite to where the Weddell House now stands, the 
Presbyterians met to worship. He chose the latter. What a joy it was to 
find God there, and to hear the words of prayer and praise ! He was of 
Baptist preferences, and so, when a little later, a Baptist minister came to 
the place, he went to hear him. 

That Baptist minister was Richmond Taggart. He came from Lock- 
port, New York. He had started west to find a field of labor in the new 
■settlements. At Cleveland he met Benjamin Rouse, Moses White, Horatio 
Ranney, and perhaps two or three others, who encouraged him to stay a 



96 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

few weeks and preach in the upper room of Brewster's academy, which 
they secured for that purpose. 

The services thus commenced soon assumed more and more of a perma- 
nent character. A prayer meeting was opened and Sunday school exercises 
commenced. The brethren began to feel encouraged, and to be assured 
that God was directing their work. About this time, one after another vis- 
ited the preacher and told him of their experience, till all of four had done 
so. Neither knew of the errand of the others, and yet all had the same 
object in view, viz : to confess Christ before men ; and all had the same en- 
quiry : ' ' What doth hinder me to be baptized ? " 

But there was no church ; no examining committee. What should be 
done ? It was easy to improvise a council to advise what was best to do, 
and so there gathered together in that academy building a little knot of 
brethren whose names havr since gone into the history of the church which 
grew out of that meeting. There were Benjamin Rouse and his wife, Mo- 
ses White, Horatio Ranney, John Seaman, Thomas Whelpley, John Malvin 
and his wife, George Tolhurst and his wife, and perhaps one or two oth- 
ers. Of these a few words in passing : 

Richmond Taggart was a man in middle life, of nervous-sanguine tem- 
perament ; a fair preacher, earnest and hopeful, but not of much culture ; 
well adapted to working up a new interest, but not so well suited to perma- 
nently instruct and edify ; naturally a pioneer, but not a permanent settler. 
He taught school to* supplement his small income, and so had not as much 
time to devote to preparation for his public services as was necessary to en- 
able him to appear to best advantage ; but this was a necessity growing out 
of the exigences of a pioneer church in so small a population. 

Benjamin Rouse was a stout, active man, about five feet five in height, 
full of energy and hope, with a big, warm heart ; a good singer, quite a 
Sunday school man, full of the spirit of enterprise, a go-ahead sort of man, 
and one much needed in the commencement of an enterprise like that. 

Moses White was a much more deliberate man. Cool, cautious, sound 
in doctrine himself, he loved orthodoxy in others. He had not the propell- 
ing power of the former, but was quite as safe in guiding. Some men are 
born with a natural inclination to hold on to the brakes, so that the machine 
shall not run too fast. Such was Moses White, and yet he was as necessary 
to the success of this enterprise as his more impulsive brother. 

Thomas Whelpley was a lawyer, at that time a bachelor, probably on 
the shady side of forty. He was better as an adviser than as an actor ; for 
he had a weakness, an easily besetting sin — at least it was charged to him — 
the sin of laziness. He was a warm-hearted fellow, yet it must be confessed 
that in the matter of doing, he preferred to leave it much to others. 

Horatio Ranney and John Seaman, though partners in business (they kept 
a shoe store under the firm name of Ranney & Seaman), were diverse in 
habits and temperament. Ranney was slow and deliberate. Seaman was 
quick and impulsive ; but they were good men and worked well together. 



LETTERS. 97 

If one was apprehensive, the other abounded in hope ; and so the one was 
the complement of the other. 

George Tolhurst was a little man from Maidstone, in Kent, England ; 
but he had a voice like a bugle. He was emphatically the sweet singer of 
Israel. 

John Malvin, the colored brother, had gone through much tribulation, 
and was so chastened and subdued in spirit as to fit him either to live or to 
die. He was a sagacious, devout, warm-hearted Christian, whose praise 
was in the hearts of the brethren. 

Of the women : Who shall tell the excellences of good sister Rouse ? 
A Dorcas to make clothes for the poor, a ministering angel to the sick, a 
wise, noble-hearted woman, with a heart as big as a warehouse ; ready for 
every good word and work, spared to the ripeness of great age to illustrate 
the beauty of holiness in a life so rounded and replete with every Christian 
grace, that she is the worthy example of all who know her. 

Of the other sisters we are only less informed because seeing less of 
them. 

Here was the group who gathered together to counsel what ought to be 
done and what should be done in regard to the baptism of these candidates. 

It was in an upper room — and we remember that it was in an upper 
room where the great, historic meeting of Acts 1 : 14 was held. The follow- 
ing words were true of both : " These all continued with one accord in 
prayer and supplication. " It was also certain that the Spirit was poured 
out from on high. It was a melting time, the hearts of all were made glad. 
It was an indication of God's will, and so it was agreed : 

1st. They shall be baptized. 

2d. All who have letters shall bring them in, and then those having 
letters shall constitute a church, and when constituted the newly baptized 
shall receive the right hand of fellowship and come in too. 

The baptism was appointed for Sunday, January 13th, 1833. 

The candidates were Mrs. Cutler, Mrs. Taylor, Caleb Wraton and 
Thomas Goodman. 

It was a bright, clear day ; the ground was crisp with frost. A little 
company led by Richmond Taggart marched out from Brewster's academy 
down to the lake shore, to a spot a little east of the pier, and there halted, 
while the congregation stood around, some on the hill-side, others on the 
beach. Along the edge of the shore was a crust of ice which extended out 
into the lake to where the water was of convenient depth. There the sisters 
and then the brethren were buried in baptism. It was an interesting occa- 
sion, and the hearts of all were made glad. 

From January 13th to February 16th was required for preparation. 
Obtaining letters from New York or Boston could not be done in a week or 
two, when stage coaches and canal boats furnished the speediest mode of 
travel ; and poor George Tolhurst must be temporarily left out, because he 
had no letter, and it would take a quarter of a year at least, to get one from 
England. 



98 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

When men's hearts are warm it is wonderful how easily they get to- 
gether, and, each bringing with him a live coal from God's altar, what a 
fire they kindle. So meetings were held frequently, and at every meeting 
every one felt blessed. 

It is more than fifty years ago, but an incident occurred in connection 
with one of those meetings which has left its impression. 

" Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present them- 
selves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them." So it is written, 
Job 1 : 6. Its illustration was not confined to Job's time. 

A middle-aged stranger, in the garb of a Quaker, took his seat in the 
middle of the house. His eyes were deep-set, his eyebrows heavy and 
over-arching, his countenance crafty and intelligent. He patiently listened 
to the sermon and was one of the last to retire. Elder Taggart was just 
at the door, arm-in-arm with a friend, when this stranger addressed him, 
saying he was a Baptist minister, and desiring Taggart to let him have the 
use of that room to preach in some evening to be agreed upon. 

"And, so, you are a Baptist minister ?" Elder T. responded. 

"Yes ;" was the prompt reply. 

"Ain't you the man that baptized Mrs. Case ?" enquired Elder T. 

"Yes;" was the reply. 

"You were a Baptist minister then. But you became a Campbellite V 

"Yes." 

"And then you became a Mormonite?" 

"Yes." 

"And your name is Sidney Rigdon ? " 

"Yes." 

Turning upon his heel, Elder T. bade him good-night, but vouchsafed 
no further reply. 

"And now, who is Sidney Rigdon ? and what is Mormonism" inquired 
his friend. He replied that Sidney Rigdon was the chief friend and con- 
spirator with Jo Smith, in palming upon the world that monstrous delusion 
and atrocious crime against God's government, first established at Kirtland, 
O. "We learned more of it afterward ; first at Kirtland ; second at Nau- 
voo ; third at Salt Lake, in Utah — that abomination which our govern- 
ment and all good men are trying to extirpate. 

It having been agreed that the time for the public recognition of the 
Eirst Baptist Church of Cleveland should be on February 16th, arrange- 
ments must be made. But who should preach? Who should give the 
right hand of fellowship ? Who should do this and who that ? Questions 
more easily asked than answered ; for ministers were scarce, and Baptist 
ministers specially so. It was, however, agreed that Elder Ware, of Royal- 
ton, should do the preaching ; and he did preach. 

The elder was in the sere and yellow leaf, a man of probably three 
score years and ten, of medium stature, with long white locks streaming 
down to his shoulders. The old man was all aglow with enthusiasm in his 
-description of the love of God in giving his Son ; and as he proceeded in his 



LETTERS. 99 

discourse, exhausted his rhetoric in telling of that matchless love which will 
be the theme of angels forever ; and then, remembering an old, hackneyed 
stanza, he spread out his hands, his white hair streaming to make it more 
impressive, he said : 

" Were all the world of paper made, 
And all the seas of ink, 
And every man a scribe by trade, 
And every single stick a quill, 
To write the love of God alone 
Would drain the ocean dry ; 
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, 
Though stretched from sky to sky." 

Strange that the ludicrous should ever intermingle with the solemn ; 
but so it was ; that well-worn stanza was inseparably connected with its par- 
ody : 

" Were all the world of paper made, 
And all the seas of ink, 
And all the trees of bread and cheese, 
What should we do for drink ? " 

And it was then and there transferred to the fly-leaf of the music book 
then used and handed to Caleb Wraton for his delectation: 

Fifty years have passed away since then — the most progressive fifty 
years since apostolic times. The men and women of that generation have, 
for the most part, gone to their long home, but their works still exist ; the 
influence they exerted is still bearing its fruit. 

The Cleveland of 1,200 people has become the city of some 200,000 ; 
the Ohio of 937,679 has become the Ohio of more than 3,200,000. Large 
cities have sprung into existence as if by magic, and the 12,856,171 of pop- 
ulation in the United States has swelled to over 50,000,000. 

********* 

They say that in the United States in 1830, there were 13,039 churches. 
In 1850, 20 years later, there were 36,011 churches. Twenty years later, 
viz : in 1870, there were 62,459 churches, This is increasing in a greater 
ratio than the population ; but these figures alone do not measure the gain, 
they only suggest it. 

We are further encouraged by the Bible work. In 1800 there were 50 
translations of the blessed Bible. In 1880 there were 250. 

The progress in missionary work gives us further encouragement. In 
the beginning of this century there were but 7 Protestant missionary socie- 
ties in the world ; to-day there are over 100. Then it was estimated that 
there were 50,000 converts to Christ in pagan"and Mahommedan countries. 
In 1882 there were 575,000 native communicants in those countries, and of 
these, over 24,000 were received in 1881. Witness the work among the Te- 
lugus and among many other peoples, and think what wonders God hath 
wrought. 



100 HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 

It is estimated that in the year ending with A.pril, 1882, the Christians 
of the United States, of England, and of Continental Europe contributed 
$9,576,654 to the great work of Foreign Missions. How gloriously has this 
work been encouraged ! 

Brethren, I greet you. Fellow-laborers in the work of the world's 
redemption, I greet you ; and close with this sentiment : 
The world for Jesus Christ. 

Thomas Goodman. 



